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.

You can find the details of all the changes below.

Why are we making these changes?

The updated system is designed to accurately track the actual time spent learning while also being as minimally invasive and distracting to the learning process as possible. We improved upon our first version, listening to learners' feedback. The updates aim to be in line with Turing College learning principles and minimize the risk of abusing the time tracking system.

A large amount of learning hours to choose according to your availability ensures that you can still study flexibly. The core idea of self-paced, mastery-approach learning remains – a learner only moves through sprints and modules when they are ready, which the project reviews and no-lecture approach guarantees. We also observe that planning your study time in advance is an extremely useful learning strategy, and these updates will encourage it even more. Finally, learning in a community of other like-minded people has always been our core value and Virtual Classrooms led by mentors create that opportunity. While we will constantly polish and improve our processes, we do not expect any more major changes such as this in the foreseeable future.

Minimum study time to finish the program

Current UZT learners, based on how much time they have tracked so far, have a different minimum number of hours each week that they need to track. This is because UZT allows missing up to 20% of all learning activities without needing to explain their absence. Furthermore, the needed tracked time can be reduced further by updating learning schedules to exclude breaks. This can result in as little as 1 hour per week for those who started in February, and as much as ~21 hours for those who started in late June. However, tracking less than 30 hours per week would result in a proportionally reduced stipend from UZT. The exact minimum needed hours can differ slightly for each learner and will be seen in the platform from the start of September.

The table below gives an estimate for the required minimum hours per week for learners depending on the start date (the exact number can depend on the Discord hours tracked since mid-July and will be seen in the platform). The “Minimum hours needed per week (average)” indicates how many hours per week a learner should spend on average starting from September to not go below the 80% requirement:

UZT Start date	UZT End date	Minimum hours needed per week (average)

UZT Start date	UZT End date	Minimum hours needed per week (average)
Earlier than 2024-03-01	Various	1 hour per week to meet the requirement of not missing 5 days of activities in a row without justifiable reasons.
2024-03-25	2024-10-30	5
2024-03-25	2024-10-10	8
2024-04-02	2024-10-17	11
2024-04-03	2024-10-18	12
2024-04-05	2024-10-22	12
2024-04-29	2024-11-14	17
2024-05-02	2024-11-18	17
2024-05-27	2024-12-11	20
2024-06-25	2025-01-14	21

The full time that a learner needs to study in synchronous learning activities based on the UZT contract is 40 academic hours (i.e. 30 learning hours).

We will now be moving to tracking learning time only, breaks excluded. This results in 30 pure learning hours needed per week. On top of that, UZT has two requirements for minimum attendance in any program:

A learner may not miss 5 full study days of learning activities in a row without a valid reason.
A learner may not miss more than 20% of all learning activities without a valid reason.

While this may still change, so far UZT has given us indications that until mid July (until the day Discord tracking was introduced) they would count that learners attended 100% of learning activities when it comes to the requirement of not missing more than 20% of them (even if the number of hours counted for stipend payments is lower).

From mid-July when Discord tracking was introduced, Discord activity data is used to show the exact time a learner has attended learning activities. We see that the majority of learners so far track 90%-100% of the needed time this way.

At the start of September, the platform will start showing to each learner the exact minimum time they need to attend learning activities per week in order to reach the minimum requirements – not missing more than 20% of all activities and not missing more than 5 days of activities in a row.

Example 1: if a learner has started their studies in April, by September, they will already have ~800 academic hours of learning confirmed. Since the program has 1120 academic hours in total and 20% of those can be missed, this minimum needed hours is just 1120*0.8 - 800 = 96 academic hours. With ~7 weeks of studies left, the learner needs ~14 academic hours (equal to ~11 learning hours) per week tracked to meet the minimum requirement. The exact number will still differ slightly because of how holiday and workdays are calculated and based on attendance in August.

Example 2: if a learner started their studies on the 1st of March, they will already have studied for 6 months by 1st of September. The full program lasts 7 months and 80% of that is 5.6 months. Assuming that the learner has the majority of their time tracked during the 6 months, they will already have ~85% of all learning activities attended and are therefore not at risk of breaching the 20% rule. The only thing they would need to worry about is to not completely miss 5 days of activities in a row. For an activity to be counted as attended, they would need to track just 1 hour per week of their choice.

Note: if you had valid reasons for missing activities submitted in the Turing College platform (e.g. incapacity to work), this does not count towards 20% of possible missed time, i.e. it does not increase the time needed per week in this table.

Technically, it is possible to vary your attendance each week in order to meet the final average at the end of your studies. However, to minimize unexpected situations where become unable to meet their requirements, we expect you to spend the indicated minimum amount of hours each week and inform us via platform chat when you cannot. That way we can help you ensure that you do not accidentally miss the requirement. We may reach out to you directly if we see that you have not met the minimum average requirement.

If you spend more than the minimum required time in a given week, the minimum average for all subsequent weeks would decrease - this would be reflected in the platform. E.g. if you have two weeks of study left and your minimum is 15 hours per week, by spending 30 hours in the first week, you would technically have 0 hours needed left for the second one (although the minimum 1 activity in 5 subsequent work-days rule would still apply).

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.

A learning activity is counted as attended if you are present in it for 45 minutes or more.
A missed day is only registered if your individual UZT schedule contains learning hours that day and if you do not attend any activities that day.

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.

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.

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.

While UZT does not grant official vacations, the best solution we’ve found rests on two conditions:

You still need to log at least 1 hour of learning activities during every 5 learning days
With the time missed, you cannot exceed 20% of total learning time over 7 months of your studies.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Virtual Classrooms are specific voice channels on Discord that you join whenever you are studying. Learners of your program and a Turing College mentor, ready to help you, would be joining as well. While in a Virtual Classroom, you can either focus on studying on your own or engage in discussions with others to get any kind of help that you need.

For each Virtual Classroom, there will be two voice main channels: Study Room and Discussions Table. Furthermore, you will see additional channels called “Individual Conversations” which are meant to allow you to have more private 1–1 or smaller group calls with mentors or peers and get the learning time tracked.

Study Room is the default room which you should join. The goal of learners here is to study the topics relevant for them with minimal interruptions. Once a learner encounters a question that they want to discuss with others, they should announce it in the Study Room and move to the Discussions Table voice channel to discuss the question in-depth. A Turing College mentor may also start some of the Virtual Classrooms by asking everyone to give stand-up-like updates about their progress, to ensure that everyone is progressing without issues.
Discussions Table is where learners and Turing College mentors discuss specific questions without interrupting those in the Study Room. The format is similar to open sessions, where those trying to help will primarily try to guide the learner towards the answer. Similarly to other events, we will always encourage other learners to try to help before the mentor does, as that lets more people benefit from peer learning. The mentor would then try to answer the question as well or, if their specialization is different than the question asked, would let you know that they will find a mentor who specializes in that specific topic. This is another benefit that Virtual Classrooms provide - a Turing College representative that would help you to more connect with someone specializing in a specific topic more efficiently.
Individual conversation tables will have a smaller limit of people, in case you want to have a private discussion with a mentor or a peer. Similar to the Discussions Table, these should only be attended for active discussions and not for silent work.

Since the number of Virtual Classrooms per week is expected to be very large (up to 118 hours of virtual classrooms per week), they will not be separated by batches (i.e., someone from DM_2024-02 batch would be able to join the same Virtual Classroom with someone from DM_2024-06). Furthermore, due to similarity of topics in DS, DA and DE programs, learners from these 3 programs will share the same Virtual Classrooms. This should result in more active Virtual Classrooms and more opportunities for connecting with a wide variety of fellow learners - whether it’s for learning together or simply networking.

Full details about Virtual Classrooms can be found here.

For Digital Marketing learners, first Virtual Classrooms will become available on 26th of August, but until 2nd of September, the time tracking rules remain unchanged. This means being active on Discord without being present in a Virtual Classroom will still count until 2nd of September.
Data Science, Data Analytics, Data Engineer, Web Develoment Virtual Clasrooms start on 2nd of September. This is when the new time tracking system becomes active, meaning being active on Discord without being present in a Virtual Classroom will no longer be tracked.

Open sessions are topic-specific. If a learner wants to have an in-depth discussion with an STL or JTL specializing in that topic, they would be advised to join a specific open session. Virtual Classrooms are topic-agnostic. When a mentor in a virtual classroom is not specialized in a particular question that you have, they will look for someone else who can help you instead, while in the meantime, you would be able to continue learning other topics in your sprint.

Mentors leading Virtual Classrooms will introduce learners to the full details regarding how to utilize these learning activities best. E.g. they will be ready to explain how to share your questions in the most efficient way, so that you’re not disturbing others too much in the Study Room, while also getting enough reaction from others.

We will share a schedule of who is running the classrooms on Learner’s Guide together with the areas of expertise for the mentors. Our suggestion is to prioritize choosing the hours that best suit your learning schedule, rather than basing it on the mentor. Even if a mentor in your Virtual Classroom cannot help you themselves, they would support you finding an STL or JTL who would be able to help you with your question.

Mentors leading Virtual Classrooms will be a mix of current STLs, JTLs and Turing College staff with relevant industry experience. While a single mentor might not always be able to answer a question about every single topic, they will be trained to efficiently find someone else in Turing College who can.

Changes to standups

Since Virtual Classrooms cover many of the same aspects that stand-ups do, we will be reducing the amount stand-ups. The most popular ones will be made accessible to all batches that have been already learning for 1 month or more.

New learners (those starting in September 2024 and further) will have stand-ups for the first month (4 stand-ups in total) only within their batches to get acquainted with their peers in a more personal environment. Afterwards, the batch standups would be replaced with access to the general ones available to all other learners.

Exceptions:

Digital Explorers II project and Digital Explorers Iraq Edition batches will continue to have stand-ups as before, since their groups do not contain any learners financed by UZT.

Changing how we track learning at Discord

Pure online status in Discord will no longer be tracked starting 2st of September, 2024. Instead, only hours in Virtual Classrooms, Open Sessions, and Project Reviews will be tracked when they coincide with your individual UZT Learning Schedule.

Pure online status in Discord tracking was confirmed as a valid form of learning activity tracking by Nacionalinė Švietimo Agentūra (NŠA) after carefully reviewing our teaching model. However, we see voice channels as a much more accurate way to track pure learning hours. It also avoids situations where learners might accidentally leave Discord on for a long time without studying, or in the worst case, even abuse the system. Virtual classrooms are thus meant to ensure there is no doubt to UZT about the exact time spent learning.

Our position still remains that the competency-based approach, which we used since the beginning of Turing College, is the most effective to ensure not only that the learners spend the time required, but also that they acquire the knowledge needed. Once UZT informed us that this is no longer viable, we saw Discord activity as the next most learner-friendly approach. Adding Virtual Classrooms and Individual UZT schedules is our next iteration of this, which aims to maintain as much flexibility as possible while also fostering the community aspect of learning. We will aim to further improve this approach, as much as possible within the limits of UZT rules, and as always, will welcome feedback and ideas from all learners.

Learner's Guide 2024

(UZT) Time tracking changes & Virtual Classrooms

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