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elow), the final year thesis work, the comprehensive exam(s), etc. The
core content focuses on the «minimal» contents, which identify any
degree course. The other essential elements —rather— are structural
constraints, which may be satisfied by a variety of contents. Their
occurrence in the curriculum and their actual content depends on a large
extent on the institution/country and —quite often— on the student’s
choice.
Many possible essential elements are listed below. They are somewhat
independent from each other and their proper and coherent mix yields
the course curriculum. They are:
—Core content 11 ;
—Choice(s) from list(s), i.e. course units, which can be chosen by
the student from one or more predefined list(s);
—Free not-structured choice or Completely free choice, i.e. course
units, which are totally left to the free choice of the student;
—Final project/thesis work;
—Other essential elements [comprehensive exam(s); intermediate
project work; compulsory seminar, stage or placement;…].
Sometimes the local teaching authority «strongly recommends» to
attend units, which are not compulsory. This is a kind of «soft »
compulsory element.
The Physics Tuning Network made a «Consultation about core
contents and other essential elements», which yielded some tables,
where examples are given about how all these elements can be put
together. These tables are shown in the Annex I. The Physics Tuning
partners were asked for detailed information about the course
units/activities in their institution, trying to identify what is compulsory,
i.e. both in terms of contents and of the other elements. From the
consultation, it appears that some of the essential elements are present
in almost all the institutions of the Physics Tuning Network. These may
be named common essential elements. The core content is by
definition an essential (and compulsory!) element everywhere. Another
quite usual compulsory essential element is the final year project. A
thorough discussion of the results and features, which can be extracted
from the just quoted tables is given below.
11 See possible definitions below. We here make the choice of not using the
terminology «core units» which may be ambiguous for several reasons (the same title
often corresponds to different contents and/or level; the unit may have a different
length in terms of credits depending on the institution, etc.).
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