Study Guide

Description

Degree
The degree is Master of Engineering. The degree gives the same qualifications for a public office as the Master’s Degree completed in a university.
Strategic Leadership of Technology Based Business
Managing competence means nurturing and building the expertise of an organisation. Knowledge economy is making its definite breakthrough, and for technology-based businesses it also includes the transformation from technical design and performance into constantly changing knowledge work.
Competitive organisations which use a lot of technology require professionals with an engineering background who also have managerial and leadership skills. The significance between the key persons who understand the relationships of matters and can guide the organisational renewal keeps growing.

Aim
The aim of the degree programme is to create professionals who are able to lead expertise in technology-based businesses and other organisations using technology extensively. The degree programme focuses especially on the skills needed to lead technology experts and technology competence, product development and innovation management, financial management, project management, international working environments and the development of the students’ own leadership behaviour.

Target Group
The Master’s degree (polytechnic) is intended for people who have completed the degree of Bachelor in Engineering and who have at least three years of working experience in a related field, after having completed the degree. For an applicant who has first completed a vocational or higher vocational diploma and then the applicable Bachelor’s degree, the minimum of three years of work experience may be accepted as the required work experience, provided that at lest one year has been accumulated after the completion of the Bachelor’s degree.

Structure of Studies
The scope of the degree is 60 credits. The studies consist of a technology-based business development task (30 cr), advanced professional studies (25 cr) and free-choice studies (5 cr).
When applying for studies, the student must have a preliminary plan for the development task. In the advanced professional studies the students deepen their knowledge and skills on strategic leadership of technology-based business. The free-choice studies allow the students to improve their knowledge in the fields required by their development task or their professional tasks.

Value basis for the programme
The program values are according to the oath of Archimedes: Engineers are involved in creating technology that will benefit nature and people. Engineers are in all their activities to protect plant, animal and human life. Engineers avoid dishonesty and discord, and aim to become more skilled problem solvers. Engineers consider the trends of development, and avoid harmful goals.

Curriculum development and working life cooperation

Degree Programme is developed together with the alumni and it is based on employer survey about skill needs.

Further information

Accreditation
Level, contents and scope
The student may suggest the accreditation of previous, at least UAS-level specialisation studies or Master’s degree studies. Based on the level, contents and scope mentioned in the course descriptions the students may consider which courses could possibly be accredited. As a general rule, complete courses are not accredited if
a) the previous studies or
b) work experience the student suggests for accreditation is older than 10 years or
c) if the courses formed a part of the student’s eligibility for the degree programme

Evaluation of the accredited studies
Accreditation is always based on the report given by the school which carried out the evaluation. The transcript of records states which studies have been used for accreditation. The grade will be S = Pass. The courses taken through Finnish On-line university of Applied sciences or TAMK Open University of Applied Sciences are automatically graded as such into the students’ records.

Partial accreditation
The students may suggest partial accreditation to a teacher of a course. The teacher defines in writing which parts of the course must still be taken and how the student may take them. The teacher evaluates the course as usual. Depending on the nature of the course, the previous partial credits may be taken into account while evaluation or the teacher may do the evaluation based on the final stages of the course only. The teacher may take into account the proportion of the previous credits and the current credits of the whole course when doing the evaluation.

Time and procedure for accreditation
The students suggest accreditation through an intranet form, Accreditation and ISP. They must print and sign the form and deliver it (along with copies of certificates they base their accreditation on) to the student counsellor. With free-choice studies, the students must also give justification for how the studies support their development task or meet some other professional requirement. The students may propose accreditations all through their studies.