At the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD students are expected to contribute to the teaching activities at the department in the form of teaching assistance. Each PhD student should typically deliver 300 hours in teaching assistance during their studies.

The actual decision about the level of individual involvement lies within the sections. As a PhD student, you should not understand teaching assistance as a mere obligation or duty work but as part of your education. It is what a university can offer as hands-on training in teaching, communicating and directing. It is one of the universities' main channels for disseminating advanced scientific knowledge beyond the research communities. 300 hours provide a sound basis to achieve this. 

The requirement to do other forms of dissemination as stated in the ministerial order is not affected by this. See the information by GSTS concerning suggested forms of dissemination. 

See the corresponding information on the web page of the Ministry of Research and Education.

In order to ensure a fair distribution of teaching assignments for PhD students, and that the PhD students get a broad exposure to different kinds of dissemination-related tasks, the following principles will be implemented for the PhD students enrolled under engineering:

1. The PhD student must deliver a certain number of obligatory hours to the Department during their PhD study. The exact number of hours is specified in each student's employment contract with the graduate school as well as in their SharePoint spreadsheet prepared by the Department. It is recommended that these responsibilities are more dominant at the beginning of the PhD study.
2. The main PhD supervisor for each PhD student has the overall responsibility for ensuring that the PhD student completes a fair amount of teaching activities, which are either relevant for the subject of the PhD student or basic knowledge, where the PhD student does not need to spend too much time getting familiar with the content.
3. In addition, the main PhD supervisor is responsible for ensuring that the PhD student gets experience with different kinds of teaching-related tasks, e.g., supervision, lectures, design and correction of exercises, workshops, assessment and peer-reviewing. This is essential in order to give the PhD student the proper knowledge to decide upon the future career path after completing the PhD study. PhD students should never be given full responsibility for a course unless they have had the necessary didactic training.
4. The Department’s PhD Committee regularly reviews the PhD students’ obligatory hours and activities as stated in their SharePoint spreadsheets.
5. The PhD student and the main supervisor discuss plans for teaching and dissemination activities, one of the goals being that the PhD student tries different types of tasks during their PhD study. The PhD student can state preferences concerning teaching assignments in their SharePoint spreadsheet under “Planned teaching activities”.

In general, dissemination can be viewed as different activities meant to communicate different disciplinary material to stakeholders at different levels of experience. The activities that can be included under dissemination are:

• Help prepare a course or a lecture (of different sizes).
• Giving dedicated lectures in (different) courses under supervision by the course responsible.
• Preparing exercises or other materials for a course.
• Correcting exercises for a course and giving written or oral feedback to the students.
• Assisting students with exercises or with lab work as course instructor.
• Co-supervisor for group work at different semesters.
• Co-supervisor for BEng, BSc and MSc theses.
• Creation of web pages, book chapters or manuals communicating disciplinary material.
• Preparation and delivery of presentations and posters.
• Internal coordination in connection with the Department’s PhD Committee, the yearly PhD Day, or organising academic activities in one’s research group.
• Writing texts for patent applications.
• Communication with media stakeholders such as journalists.
• Presentation of research results internally and externally to companies or at conferences.
• Assistance in research activities that are not directly relevant for the PhD research, for example in a project.
• Deliverables or project applications.
• General marketing activities towards young students, e.g., as a part of AU activities at high schools (“Det Rullende Universitet”).

The number of hours spent on each type of activity needs to be balanced, and this will be determined by the members of the Department's PhD Committee. Note that a factor is used for preparation for giving lectures (factor 5) and for assisting with exercises (factor 3).

Be aware that the actual writing of articles is not considered dissemination. It is a part of the research itself.

If a PhD student is fully (or mostly) sponsored by external funds, the supervisor is allowed to use the PhD student for more activities related to the funding agency (typically a project), but the PhD student still has to have diversity in their activities.

The graduate school grants exemptions from the obligatory hours for stays abroad that overlap with teaching periods.

Industrial PhDs are exempted from obligatory hours.