This gives about 25 hours of workload per ECTS credit. The student workload in the faculties of Medicine and especially Dentistry, however, is much higher than this value due to extensive laboratory and clinical exercises as well as dental model production exercises in the latter. Academic recognition As part of the integration into the European higher education area, Karadeniz Technical University ensures recognition of credits received in another higher education institution with which it has bilateral agreements, provided that the courses taken by the students are pre-agreed on by the departmental committee. Therefore, the students wishing to study abroad under the Erasmus+ programme are asked to get their learning agreements approved by their departments before application to the host institution. The signatures on the learning agreement assure the exchange students that their credits will be recognised and incorporated into their transcript of records as courses taken abroad. To ensure the recognition, the students are also asked to prepare a document of course equivalence in which the courses to be taken abroad and those they will be considered equal with after the mobility period are shown. This document, which is signed by the student and the members of the recognition committee of the department composed of the head of department, the Erasmus+ coordinator and the staff member responsible for course equivalence, and signed and stamped by the dean following a discussion in the faculty board, is a guarantor for the student in question showing that the courses to be taken abroad will be recognised as shown on the document. If any changes are needed on the learning agreement, both the changes and the newly prepared equivalence document must be sent back to the home institution to follow the same track to be valid. Following the mobility period, the students are required to bring the transcript of records obtained from the host institution together with other documents such as learning agreement to the International Office which then gets in touch with the departmental coordinators to get the recognition process under the way. We make sure that the recognition is complete and all the courses passed by the student at the host institution are fully recognised by the department provided that they were pre-discussed and agreed up on by the student and the departmental recognition committee. International Perspective The Best Global Universities Ranking of the U.S. News & World Report ranks KTU 1100th