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A study plan is necessary for registering for courses. To register for courses, your study plan does not have to be confirmed. You should not apply for approval of modules in Sisu at this stage of the studies (although Sisu's notifications often suggest this).

From the viewpoint of course registration, the most important thing is that the course can be found in your study plan under one of the modules. Fully following the structure of your doctoral programme's curriculum (link) is not mandatory at this stage, although it can certainly make it easier to finalize the plan at the end of your studies. However, from the viewpoint of registration, it does not matter at this stage how the courses are placed in the plan. 

You can have several study plans, but you can only register through your primary plan. 

When your doctoral studies are nearing completion, i.e. you have completed all the courses and the preliminary examination is approaching, the Sisu study plan must be finalized to follow the curriculum, which usually is the curriculum version from your starting year. Your degree certificate will be compiled according to the finalized study plan. 

The finalized Sisu study plan includes the following modules:

• General Research Studies
  (In your study plan, the courses of this module are  listed below. Check from your doctoral programme’s curriculum that you have placed the courses under the correct module. Follow the curriculum of your starting year, unless you have transferred to a newer research field or to the 30 ECTS degree structure).
• Research Field Studies
  (Do not put the courses directly under this heading, but under your own research field module)
  Your own research field module, e.g. Space Science and Technology ELEC008Z
  (In your study plan, the courses of this module are  listed below. Check from your doctoral programme’s curriculum that you have placed the courses under the correct module. Follow the curriculum of your starting year, unless you have transferred to a newer research field or to the 30 ECTS degree structure).
• Doctoral Thesis
  The code of your doctoral thesis module (follows the research field code, e.g. ELEC008Z.diss)
• Extracurricular Studies
  (NOTE! Clear the content before applying for graduation) These studies are not included in your degree, but the completed courses will remain on your transcript of records.

NOTE: In some cases, there is also a subheading "Other courses" under the heading of the study module, under which some of the courses are placed.

Approval of modules

In most cases, Sisu requires the approval of the modules, and this should only be requested just before the pre-examination phase. When the contents of the module need to be approved, the text “approval required” appears after the heading of the module. 

Apply for approval in Sisu at the latest when you submit the pre-examination application, or preferably a few months in advance. Before applying for approval in Sisu, all courses must be completed and you must have confirmation from your supervising professor* for the final content of your degree, either in the DPSP or by a separate email following the instructions of your doctoral programme. Doctoral Education Services processes the approval applications in Sisu. It is a good idea to inform the coordinator/planning officer of your doctoral programme of the approval applications you have submitted for pre-examination in Sisu, as the system will not be notify them by email.

*At BIZ, the Head of doctoral studies of the major.

When you are about to graduate, you must apply for graduation in Sisu (graduation request). Without this request, you cannot graduate from Aalto. In order to graduate swiftly, doctoral students should apply for graduation already before the doctoral thesis has been graded/approved (graduation request can be submitted already before the defence). In such a situation, graduation is applied for through the Sisu study plan, see Sisu graduation request instructions. Please check that you have removed all the courses under the Extracurricular studies, as they are not included in the doctoral degree. All the completed courses will remain in the student register.

All the courses which can be included in a doctoral degree have not been included in the degree structure template in Sisu. It might still be possible to include them in your study plan if you have agreed so with your supervising professor. In this case, Sisu will give an error message "Not part of your degree structure", but this does not prevent the course from being added to your plan. 

If it is possible to activate the "Other courses" subheading under the module, placing the course under this subheading instead usually removes the error message. However, in all cases, this subheading is not available.

Please note that the version of the course changes every year, so if you add all the courses to the plan at the beginning of your studies, you must check and, if necessary, update their versions before enrolment. 

Instructions for changing the version

Other common problems with registration

Detailed instructions on registering for courses in Sisu

If you are still unable to enrol after this, please contact the teacher of the course.

Independently completed individual studies: In Sisu, there are course codes and descriptions for the typical independent personal attainments of doctoral studies. Individual studies are, for example; conference presentations, summer schools, publications (not included in the doctoral thesis) or literature reviews. There are two different ways to add individual studies to your plan in Sisu. Read the instructions for independently completed individual studies.

Credit transfer: You can include studies from other universities in your degree if you have agreed on this with your supervising professor and they have been included in your study plan in Sisu. Read the credit transfer instructions.

If your degree structure includes compulsory courses, they will in most cases automatically appear in your study plan in Sisu. However, we recommend to check the compulsory courses in the curriculum of the your starting year (or, if you have switched to the 30 ECTS degree structure, in the curriculum for 2024-25).

The possibility of substituting compulsory courses must be checked with your doctoral programme, unless it is a direct substitution. For example, the course LC-L1000 Research Ethics for Doctoral Students can always be substituted by the previous course, LC-L1010 Research Ethics for Doctoral Students.

If you want to substitute the compulsory course LC-L1000 with the previous course LC-L1010 , you can apply for a substitution for it as follows: 

1. Click on the course code LC-L1000 on your study plan.
2. Select the tab 'Substitutions'.
3. Turn on substitution for the course you have completed.
4. Check that the course is shown as completed in your study plan. 

If you want to add a course which is shown as completed on your transcript of records to your study plan in Sisu, but it is not selectable even in free edit mode, please contact your doctoral programme. The most common reason for the problem is that the course has been completed during another study right and it is therefore linked to that study right. Your doctoral programme can edit the course attainment, after which case you can add it to your plan.

It is important that you choose a research field that has been confirmed for you to your plan. If you do not know which research field has been confirmed for you, check it in Sisu under "My profile" > Study rights.

The research fields offered may vary from one academic year to another. So make sure that you have selected the curriculum period for your study plan in Sisu according to the starting year of your studies (this is selected at the very beginning and cannot be changed, you will have to create a new plan to change it). If the research field still does not appear, please contact your doctoral programme.

If you have already completed all the required studies when the Oodi system was in use and they have been grouped into study modules, the completed module should automatically appear in your study plan in Sisu. The most common reason why the module is not visible is that the wrong curriculum period has been selected for the study plan. So make sure that you have selected the curriculum period for your study plan in Sisu according to the starting year of your studies (this is selected at the very beginning and cannot be changed, you will have to create a new plan to change it). If the study module still does not appear, please contact your doctoral programme.

In general, this indicates that too many credits have been selected for the module. Check the maximum number of credits for the module and adjust your plan accordingly. If you have chosen courses with a flexible scope (e.g. 1-5 cr), the credits of the module may be exceeded in the planning phase. After completing the courses, make sure that your final plan complies with the given credit limits.

If your supervising professor has already approved your plan earlier, ask your doctoral programme for advice.

It is also possible that you have added the course to incorrect place in the plan, for example directly under the heading “Research Field Studies”, where you cannot place any courses. These courses should be placed under the heading of your own research field. Remove the course and add it in the correct place, i.e. under your own research field module.

In some cases, you may not be able to add all the courses you have completed to your new study plan in Sisu until you have been transferred to the new structure. In this case, it is advisable to first apply for the transfer to the new structure using a PDF form, and make the new study plan in Sisu only after the transfer. See the instructions for the transfer for more information.

The 30 ECTS degree structure does not necessarily offer the same research fields as your old structure. If you cannot find your confirmed research field in the menu, please contact your doctoral programme. The name of the research field must be exactly the same as the research field confirmed for you. You may also need to apply for a change of research field.

Please note that studies in the research field are always added under the module of the research field confirmed for you, NOT directly under the heading "Research Field Studies”. 

Front page missing selection: The student front page in Sisu displays a notification of a missing selection if the doctoral thesis code has not been correctly placed in the your study plan in Sisu. Remeber to include the correct thesis code under the doctoral thesis module in your study plan.

Wrong research field: If you have selected a research field which has not been confirmed for you, Sisu will show an error notification "No study right" below the name of the research field in your study plan. In this case, check the name of the research field confirmed for you in Sisu under "My profile" > Study rights.

Those students who have studied for a long time and completed their studies when the Oodi system was in use may also encounter other error messages and problem situations. In this case, please contact your doctoral programme's Doctoral education services.

If you have both licentiate and doctoral study right, you can find the right structure of studies the following way. For technical reasons, both programmes are named the same, but they differ by code.

If you want to create a credit plan for licentiate degree:

1. Start creating the new study plan and choose My educations, type in the programme name Aalto doctoral programme in... and choose one of the alternatives below.
2. The field 'Learning opportunity' tells you which one you have chosen, licentiate or doctoral.
3. You can also check if you've chosen the correct one from the degree programme code; for licentiate degree includes the letter 'L'.

On the left side of your study plan there is the Add to the plan tab, which you can use to add your completed courses in the study plan. Use the arrow after the name of the course to add the course to the plan. Then select the module in which you want to place the course and confirm it  in the selection assistant.

An Add to the plan button is also visible in the selection assistant on the right, where you can add planned courses in the study plan.

Study drafts are used for individual study attainments or courses which are completed outside Aalto University.

How to add a study draft:

1. First choose the correct module where you want to place the study draft and click open the module à selection assistant opens to the right side of the page.
2. On the selection assistant choose Add a study draft.
3. Fill the required information carefully. Please note that you cannot modify any information given on the study draft once you have added it to your plan. If you need to make changes, please delete the draft and create a new one.
4. When your study attainment is finished, you can receive credit for it through the credit transfer or the custom course credit procedure. See Sisu instructions:

Incorporating studies in your degree by credit transferDoctoral programme instructions

Each study draft must contain the following information:

• Name: title of the literature review, title of conference/summer school, teaching assistant on a course XXXX)
• Planned credits
• Institution where you plan to gain the knowledge
  • If you are planning an individual study (e.g. literature exam/review, teaching) please write Aalto University to this section.
• Description of the learning outcomes
  • I.e. a description of what you plan to do and what learning you plan to gain.

Please note that you cannot modify any information given on the study draft once you have added it to your plan. If you need to make changes, please delete the draft and create a new one.

When you later apply for credit transfer or custom course credit through the study draft, please remember to include the required attachments to your application. See more information at the instructions for the Doctoral personal study plan: credit plan: studies in other universities (credit transfer: inclusion)

If you have already completed the study attainment, it is also possible to apply for the credits directly, without making a study draft first. Please see instructions:Incorporating studies in your degree by credit transfer

Free edit mode is a functionality where you can for example add already completed courses which you cannot find under Add to the plan function on the left-hand side.

1. Click the title of the module (not the code) where you want to place the course(s) or where you would like to make changes, and the selection assistant opens to the right side of the page.
2. Click three dots on the top right corner à Free edit mode.
3. Choose Add a course you have already completed.

Other possible cases when you need to use free edit mode:

• Removing compulsory courses, see below
• In specific cases, requesting approval for module(s).

If you need to remove compulsory courses from your credit plan, you should only do that in the Free edit mode. Note that if you make changes in the module after removing a compulsory course, the compulsory course might reappear in your plan, so always check this after making changes.

Removing compulsory courses from your credit plan requires that you have agreed about it with your supervising professor and mainly applies if you

• have transferred a degree structure and have agreed with your supervising professor that you don’t need to take a specific compulsory course,
• have agreed with your supervising professor to substitute a compulsory course with another study / set of studies.

If you want to cancel module approval request, you can find the application via My Profile → Applications and requests. Choose the application and click Withdraw application.

If you made changes to an approved study module or grouping module but you did not give up its approved status before starting to edit, you will see a notification next to the programme or module: differs from the content of the approval application. Please see the detailed instructions:Study module status