Organisational tips for your studies

On the following pages, we have compiled information that is of interest to prospective and existing students of the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer .

Informations of the registrar's office:

Application for re-inscription
Application for Taberna Cards (cashless payments)Application for Taberna Cards (cashless payments)

Student handbook for post-graduate study of administrative sciences.

Announcement for the senate election of students

Letter from the students' representatives of the previous semester

 

University Speyer semester dates

Lectures take place between 1 November and 31 January in the winter semester and between 1 May and 31 July in the summer semester.
The summer semester itself begins on 1 April each year, the winter semester on 1 October.
 

Information about student representation:

The students at the university represent the student body in accordance with § 77 of the State Act on the German University for Administrative Sciences Speyer (Landesgesetz über die Deutsche Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer; DUVwG), an entity under public law, which sets forth articles of association, an election policy and a fee policy.

Students of the Speyer University

 

Enrolment, continuation and de-registration

Enrolment

Enrolment takes place at the beginning of the lecture period in the classroom building starting at 8:00 am.

Continuation

Students who want to continue their studies must report back

  • by 1 March for the summer semester and
  • by 1 September for the winter semester

The form to report back and continue studying can be requested at the registrar's office or downloaded here as a PDF file.

Student fee in the amount of €40 in accordance with the fee policy

The student fee must be transferred prior to the beginning of the lecture period, with indication of the name of the student, to the following account at Volksbank Kur- und Rheinpfalz eG:

  • Account holder: Students of the Speyer University
    Account no.: 3760
    Bank: Volksbank Kur- und Rheinpfalz eG
    BLZ/sort code: 547 900 00
    IBAN code: DE 3954 79 0000 0000 0037 60
    Swift code: GENODE 61 SPE

De-registration

You can de-register at the end of the lecture period from 8:00 am to 12:30 pm and from 12:30 pm to 3:30 pm at the registrar's office.
It is necessary for you to appear in person at the registrar's office. Please bring your student ID card with you. If you used the university library in Heidelberg and Mannheim, you will need confirmation from there that you do not have any borrowed books.
Students in the master's degree programmes, professional development guests and doctoral students who are not assigned to us within the scope of an internship will not be de-registered as long as their studies have not been completed.

Ensuring good scientific practice

Speyer University attaches tremendous importance to compliance with good scientific practice. Good scientific practice means working lege artis and is always based on the latest findings. It requires knowledge and use of the latest documents, the application of adequate methods and findings.
Good scientific practice is characterised by doubt and self-criticism, by critical examination of the obtained findings and by controlling them, for example through reciprocal validation within a working group, but also through honesty in regard to the contributions of colleagues, employees, competitors and predecessors.
In particular, it prohibits any violation of intellectual property in regard to work protected by the copyright of another or use of others' significant scientific or academic findings, hypotheses, doctrines or research approaches. Such a violation can occur, among others, due to:

  • unauthorised usage with the assumption of authorship (plagiarism);
  • the assumption or unjustified crediting of scientific authorship or co-authorship;
  • falsification of contents.

It should be expressly noted that you can expect significant penalties for violations of good scientific practice.

Plagiarism

The amount of plagiarism at German universities has increased considerably. One of the reasons is that the internet has caused changes in the technique of scientific writing and scientific dialogue, which can lead to a less careful and less responsible handling of used sources. It should be emphasised, however, that plagiarism is not acceptable in any case, even under the new research, reading, communication and writing conditions.
Plagiarism refers to the use of another person's intellectual property rights as if they were the plagiarist's own intellectual property. Related terms are counterfeiting, copying or imitation. In the case of plagiarism it is necessary to distinguish between a narrower definition that includes literal adoption of another person's intellectual property as if it were the plagiarist's own, and a more expansive definition; the latter also includes the improper interpretation of quotation law (§ 51 of the Germany Copyright Act [Urheberrechtsgesetz; UrhG]). This happens when the actual authorship is obscured or required sources are cited insufficiently.
Plagiarism is not a trivial offence, but rather a fundamental disregard for binding scientific rules. The accusation of plagiarism is independent of guilt. Here it is irrelevant whether the plagiarist has acted intentionally with a conscious intention to deceive or accidentally or negligently. However, under some circumstances, this may play a role in the extent of the penalty for plagiarism. The main forms of plagiarism are:

  • the more or less literal adoption of formulations from the original source without appropriate identification in accordance with the binding practice of citation;
  • the reformulation of content, ideas, arguments and opinions (paraphrasing), and their summary (synopsis) without identifying the source;
  • the inclusion of statistics, particularly sentence structures, keywords and style elements without identifying such.

Plagiarism is easy to produce, but usually also quite easy for readers to identify. Internet research also quickly shows readers the corresponding source texts. Sudden changes in style, conspicuous or missing transitions and argumentation, etc. are indicators of foreign content and trigger additional checks by the reader.
Speyer University views plagiarism as a serious breach of good scientific practice and penalises it accordingly. The - also retroactively imposed - penalties can extend to marking test results as "not passed" or even to final and full disqualification of a right to testing.
With a view to the fundamental goal of ensuring the good scientific practice that is applied in the degree programmes, teaching and professional development at the university, the senate of the university has decided to give readers (lecturers, reviewers, testers, etc.) access to automated, electronic plagiarism tests in the form of plagiarism identification software.
For this reason, § 8 (1) (7) of the University Enrolment Policy sets forth that students must issue a signed and dated declaration upon enrolment/continuation in which they give their consent to have their papers and tests written and taken during the course of the degree programme at the university sent anonymously in electronic form to a third party and saved for the purpose of a plagiarism check. Work will not be read if this declaration is not issued.
A form will be given to students for signing when they enrol.