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Applicable for learners who started before 2024-09 |
Since Discord tracking was introduced, we were working to make it more convenient while continuing to meet all the UZT requirements. We finally have an update about changes to the time tracking system, starting from September 2nd. We hope these changes will make it easier for most of you to reach the requirements set by UZT and to gain the required skills more efficiently.
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Based on UZT rules, a learner may not miss 5 full study days of learning activities in a row without a valid reason. Doing so puts the learner at risk of study contract termination.
Example 1: a learner has an UZT schedule with learning activities only during Mondays-Fridays. If a learner attends an activity on Monday and then stops attending them during all next days, the last day they need to attend a learning activity again is next Monday in order not to not miss 5 study days in a row. This would result in 4 missed days in a row: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.Example 2: a learner has an UZT schedule with learning activities during Mondays-Sundays (only possible for employed learners). If a learner attends an activity on Monday and then stops attending them during all next days, the last day they need to attend a learning activity again is Saturday in order not to not miss 5 study days in a row. This would result in 4 missed days in a row: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Attending a learning activity any later would result in 5 days missed or more, since Saturday and Sunday can be marked as missed as well |
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It is important that no matter when you started your studies, the stipend received from UZT each month depends on the exact number of study hours that were tracked during those months. To get 100% of the stipend, you need to attend 100% of the learning activities, meaning 30 hours per week (assuming no national holidays). If you choose to study less, such as only meeting the average minimum hours required as indicated in the previous table, your monthly stipend from UZT will be reduced accordingly. For example, if you track only 15 hours each week, which is 50% of the 30 needed hours for full stipend, you would get 50% of your stipend for those weeks. |
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It is important that no matter when you started your studies, the stipend received from UZT each month depends on the exact number of study hours that were tracked during those months. To get 100% of the stipend, you need to attend 100% of the learning activities, meaning 30 hours per week (assuming no national holidays). If you choose to study less, such as only meeting the average minimum hours required as indicated in the previous table, your monthly stipend from UZT will be reduced accordingly. For example, if you track only 15 hours each week, which is 50% of the 30 needed hours for full stipend, you would get 50% of your stipend for those weeks. |
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Learning time cannot be tracked during national holidays. It also means that weeks containing national holidays will have a lower attendance requirement needed to get the full UZT stipend. The exact requirements of such weeks will be visible to each learner individually in the platform. |
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While UZT does not grant official vacations, the best solution we’ve found rests on two conditions:
During a vacation, you would be allowed to track less than your minimum average weekly learning time, but you should keep in mind that in the weeks after your vacation, this minimum would increase. Example: You have 4 weeks of study left and your weekly minimum tracked time is 15 hours. In other words, you still have 60 hours of learning time that you need to track. If you go on a vacation for 1 week (and still attend 1 hour of activities to not miss 5 days in a row), you would afterwards have a minimum of 59 hours of study time left over 3 weeks. This results in the minimum increasing to 59/3 = ~20 hours of minimum study time per week for the remaining 3 weeks. Up until mid-July, vacation time would still be counted as fully attended learning activities specifically when it comes to meeting the 80% total attendance requirement. |
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Yes, the minimum sprints and the competencies you need to gain for an UZT certificate are not affected by this change. Additionally, after completing the required number of sprints, the attendance expectations remain the same until the end of the official UZT study period. This allows you to study further and go through additional modules and acquire additional valuable skills. |
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We will still keep the current tracking until the end of August. However, if you find it particularly difficult to meet the full required time and a reduced stipend is not a major issue to you, we will not take any action if you choose to track a number of hours closer to the expected weekly average minimum (as shown in the table). Keep in mind, however, you will only see the exact individual calculation of your needed minimum time on the platform starting September. |
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To fully avoid any potential issues with UZT in the future, we must ensure that all the tracked learning activity hours happen during times set in advance in your learning schedule (“tvarkaraštis”) which is signed by us and you. The learning schedule must contain 30 pure hours of learning per week (i.e. 40 academic hours of learning without any breaks included). Even though Nacionalinė Švietimo Agentūra agreed that it would be enough to rely on the calendar available on our platform, we could not get UŽT to confirm that this works for them – currently they still ask us to provide schedules as signed documents. To make this as little of a burden as possible for learners, we have created a system that allows each learner to set their individual schedule, generate a document containing it, and to change it when needed.
The exact process is:
Each learner needs to set their schedule within the Turing College platform to choose the hours most convenient for them.
Later, after the form is completed, the learner will receive a link to sign the newly generated schedule.
Starting from the 9nd of September, we will only track time in the hours during which your calendar has learning activities scheduled. Activities that are tracked are: Virtual Classrooms, Open Sessions, Project reviews, Stand-ups. If you are in an activity that is happening on Zoom, you do not need to simultaneously be present in Discord as well.
A schedule can be changed if your existing one has already been active for at least 6 days and takes effect the following day (meaning in total, a schedule will be active for at least 7 days).
Until 9th of September 2024, we will still track time during all hours (6am-midnight weekdays, 6am-20pm weekends) based on the same rules as before (active status on Discord).
Pure online status in Discord will no longer be tracked starting 9th of September, 2024.
Requirements for individual schedules
Employed learners
Schedule needs to contain exactly 30 hours
Each day must have no more than 9 hours
There should be no more than 3 consecutive hours of learning
You are free to study at any day of the week, weekends included.
Unemployed learners
Schedule needs to contain exactly 30 hours
Each day must have no more than 6 hours
There should be no more than 3 consecutive hours of learning
By the laws of UZT, you unfortunately are not allowed to track attendance over the weekend.
Note that the minimum attendance requirement for the rest of your studies depends on your learning start date and it will surely be lower than 30hrs/week.
If we do not have a correctly filled-out form in time before the new time tracking takes place, an updated original schedule will be used, containing the following hours on workdays:
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Learning time cannot be tracked during national holidays. It also means that weeks containing national holidays will have a lower attendance requirement needed to get the full UZT stipend. The exact requirements of such weeks will be visible to each learner individually in the platform. |
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While UZT does not grant official vacations, the best solution we’ve found rests on two conditions:
During a vacation, you would be allowed to track less than your minimum average weekly learning time, but you should keep in mind that in the weeks after your vacation, this minimum would increase. Example: You have 4 weeks of study left and your weekly minimum tracked time is 15 hours. In other words, you still have 60 hours of learning time that you need to track. If you go on a vacation for 1 week (and still attend 1 hour of activities to not miss 5 days in a row), you would afterwards have a minimum of 59 hours of study time left over 3 weeks. This results in the minimum increasing to 59/3 = ~20 hours of minimum study time per week for the remaining 3 weeks. Up until mid-July, vacation time would still be counted as fully attended learning activities specifically when it comes to meeting the 80% total attendance requirement. |
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Yes, the minimum sprints and the competencies you need to gain for an UZT certificate are not affected by this change. Additionally, after completing the required number of sprints, the attendance expectations remain the same until the end of the official UZT study period. This allows you to study further and go through additional modules and acquire additional valuable skills. |
| Expand | ||
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We will still keep the current tracking until the end of August. However, if you find it particularly difficult to meet the full required time and a reduced stipend is not a major issue to you, we will not take any action if you choose to track a number of hours closer to the expected weekly average minimum (as shown in the table). Keep in mind, however, you will only see the exact individual calculation of your needed minimum time on the platform starting September. |
Individualized UZT schedules
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To fully avoid any potential issues with UZT in the future, we must ensure that all the tracked learning activity hours happen during times set in advance in your learning schedule (“tvarkaraštis”) which is signed by us and you. The learning schedule must contain 30 pure hours of learning per week (i.e. 40 academic hours of learning without any breaks included). Even though Nacionalinė Švietimo Agentūra agreed that it would be enough to rely on the calendar available on our platform, we could not get UŽT to confirm that this works for them – currently they still ask us to provide schedules as signed documents. To make this as little of a burden as possible for learners, we have created a system that allows each learner to set their individual schedule, generate a document containing it, and to change it when needed.
The exact process is:
Each learner first needs to sign a document which confirms that agreeing to calendar changes in the platform is equivalent to a qualified e-signature. This makes it possible to change the calendar without needing to sign a document each time.
The platform will guide you through setting hours so that all rules are followed. Once hours are chosen and confirmed by us, we will ask you to confirm these changes.
We will only track time in the hours during which your calendar has learning activities scheduled. Activities that are tracked are: Virtual Classrooms, Open Sessions, Project reviews, Stand-ups. If you are in an activity that is happening on Zoom, you do not need to simultaneously be present in Discord as well.
You can choose between updating the schedule for the current week only vs. updating it for the next and the following weeks.
You can change the calendar daily
Until 9th of September 2024, we will still track time during all hours (6am-midnight weekdays, 6am-20pm weekends) based on the same rules as before (active status on Discord).
Pure online status in Discord will no longer be tracked starting 9th of September, 2024.
Requirements for individual schedules
Employed learners
Schedule needs to contain exactly 30 hours
Each day must have no more than 9 hours
There should be no more than 3 consecutive hours of learning
The schedule must contain exactly 5 days with learning activities
You are free to study at any day of the week, weekends included.
Unemployed learners
Schedule needs to contain exactly 30 hours
Each day must have no more than 6 hours
There should be no more than 3 consecutive hours of learning
By the laws of UZT, you unfortunately are not allowed to track attendance over the weekend.
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Note that the minimum attendance requirement for the rest of your studies depends on your learning start date and it will surely be lower than 30hrs/week.
If we do not have a correctly filled-out form in time before the new time tracking takes place, an updated original schedule will be used, containing the following hours on workdays:
9:00 - 12:00
13:00 - 16:00
How is hourly stipend rate calculated when Turing College is covering it?
There are two different hourly rates for stipends available. The rate you receive will depend on whether you are currently employed or unemployed. For those who are employed, the rate is 0.3 times the minimum hourly rate, which is currently 5.65 euros per hour. This means that the stipend amount would be 1.70 euros (0.3 * 5.65). For those who are unemployed, the rate is 0.5 times the minimum hourly rate, resulting in a stipend amount of 2.83 euros (0.5 * 5.65) or a fixed unemployment benefit amount, which is calculated individually by Sodra. Please note that these calculations are based on 40 academic hours per week. However, the final amount you receive will depend on the actual number of hours you have learned during the month.
Virtual Classrooms
A Virtual Classroom is a learning activity that makes it easy to study at your own pace, track the required learning hours, and get even more individualized support from your peers and Turing College mentors in real time.
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