Studying at Glasgow – Navigating the Course Catalogue
Published: 8 October 2018
In this guide for students considering studying at Glasgow and/or study abroad staff, David Fearn Shows you how to choose courses via the University Course Catalogue
If you are looking for classes to study at Glasgow, the University Course Catalogue is the first point to go for information on all courses. It can be found at
or simply search for ‘Course Catalogue’ on the University home page.
Once in the Catalogue, I recommend the option “Browse by Subject Area”.
Once a subject area has been chosen, you will see a list of courses by Level. Level 1 are typically first-year courses and Level-2, second-year. There is then some variation of practice; some subjects denote all upper level courses Level 4, while others make a distinction between Level-3 and Level-4. Level-5 courses are Masters level.
When you choose a particular course, for example,
https://www.gla.ac.uk/coursecatalogue/course/?code=ECON2001
you will see immediately information such as in which semester it is delivered, whether it is open to visiting students, and how many credits it counts for (a full semester is 60 credits). There then follows information on course aims and Intended Learning Outcomes.
The course web page has two or three links at the very top:
- “View Specification Document”. This is present for all courses and is a Word document that is the source of some of the information on the web page, but also contains additional information on class contact hours broken down by lectures/tutorials/labs, etc and also on the breakdown of assessment.
- “View Course Handbook”. This is an optional entry, and, so far, only a small number of courses make use of this. It is an opportunity for subjects to make available additional detailed information on the course.
- “Reading List”. This link is present for almost all courses. It links to the University Library system that holds information on recommended reading for the course. Whether the link works, depends on whether the faculty member delivering the course has provided the information to the Library. Where the list is present, it may also include links to online resources. Access to these requires a Glasgow University login. Of course, any visiting student will have access to these.
David Fearn is Dean for Global Engagement for the Americas at the University of Glasgow and can be contacted via his staff profile page.
First published: 8 October 2018
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