Before you make a complaint, it is often a good idea to discuss any issues with your study board, your lecturer or a student counsellor. This will often clear up any misunderstandings and is an opportunity to get a more detailed explanation of the issues you may be unhappy about.

However, you should be aware that the deadline for appealing an exam or study board decision is 14 days after you have received the assessment or decision. This applies even if you are awaiting a response from the assessor or the study board. We therefore recommend that you submit a complaint within the deadline if you are not satisfied with the exam or the board of studies' decision.

Appeals against decisions made by the University will usually have a deadline of two weeks from the day you received the decision. If you wish to complain about an exam, you must submit your complaint no later than two weeks after you have received the assessment.

Once you have filed an exam appeal, the University will obtain a statement from the assessor(s) and/or the study board depending on what your appeal concerns. The assessor(s) and/or the study board generally have 14 days to prepare a statement responding to the complaint (July is not included in the deadline).

After this, there may be a processing time, as the University must ensure that the statement answers the points of complaint. You will then have the opportunity to comment on the statement, and the deadline for sending your comments is one week. We therefore encourage you to stay updated on your student email when you have submitted your complaint. 

If you wish to appeal a decision on credit transfer to the Qualifications Board, there is a four-week deadline for appeals.

The deadline can be waived if you can document that there have been unusual circumstances that have affected your ability to submit the appeal on time. The same applies if you send your comments to the assessor(s)’ statement after the deadline.

If you submit a complaint or your comments on the statement after the deadline, we therefore encourage you to justify why you believe that the University should still process your complaint. Please note that under normal circumstances, being busy with your studies or other exams is not considered exceptional circumstances. Exceptional circumstances could be, for example, illness of yourself or a close relative or problems with the University's IT systems for which the University is responsible. In all cases, we encourage you to submit documentation for the exceptional circumstances. 

Contact Educational Law and Secretariat for information about appeal deadlines in specific cases.

Please note that Educational Law and Secretariat are available by phone from 8.00 to 12.00 every weekday. Otherwise they can be contacted by email.

AAU Student Guidance can provide you with an overview of how a complaint should be formulated in terms of form and content in order to include all important parts. It is very important that your complaint is concrete and preferably supported by documentation. AAU Student and Well-being Counselling cannot help you with the specific form of the complaint, including content and wording.

If, after reading the above, you are in doubt about your options for filing a complaint, you can contact Educational Law and Secretariat, the study board or your head of studies, depending on what you want to complain about.

The guide below briefly describes the most common types of complaints, who to complain to and how to complain.

Who to send the complaint to depends on the content of the complaint. Here you can see who to contact if you want to complain about...

Examination

If you wish to complain about an exam, you must complain to Educational Law and Secretariat at sl-klager@adm.aau.dk.

The study board's decisions

If you wish to appeal the study board's decision, you must appeal to Educational Law and Secretariat at sl-klager@adm.aau.dk.

Teaching or counselling

If you want to complain about teaching or counselling, please contact your Head of Studies.

You can find information about who the director of studies is for your programme here.

The University's decision in a previous complaint

If you wish to appeal the University's decision in a previous complaint, you must appeal to Educational Law and Secretariat at sl-klager@adm.aau.dk.

Please state in the complaint whether you wish to complain about academic or legal matters or both. If you wish to appeal both academic and legal issues, we recommend that you send two separate appeals, as academic issues are handled by an appeals board and legal issues are handled by the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science.

Credit transfer

If you wish to appeal the study board's decision on credit transfer, you must appeal to Educational Law and Secretariat at sl-klager@adm.aau.dk.

Please state in the complaint whether you wish to complain about academic or legal matters or both. If you wish to appeal both, we recommend that you send two separate appeals, as appeals regarding legal matters are handled by a merit appeals board, while appeals regarding academic matters are handled by Educational Law and Secretariat (and ultimately the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science).

The University's decision in a disciplinary case

If you wish to appeal the University's decision in a disciplinary case, you must appeal to Educational Law and Secretariat at sl-klager@adm.aau.dk.

Complaints about admission

If you wish to appeal a decision on admission to a bachelor programme, you must send your appeal to bacheloroptag@adm.aau.dk.

If you wish to appeal a decision on admission to a Master's programme, please send your appeal to kandidatoptag@adm.aau.dk.

If you wish to appeal a decision on admission to a continuing education programme, the appeal must be sent to efteruddannelse@adm.aau.dk.

Complaints about matters concerning SU

You can read more about complaints about SU at How to complain | SU

There are no formal requirements for a complaint. However, the University needs some information in order to process a complaint.

We therefore always recommend that your complaint contains the following information:

1. Who is complaining?
2. What are you complaining about?
3. Why are you complaining?

In order for the University to process your complaint, we need to know your full name. For identification and security reasons, you must also provide either your student number or CPR number, your programme and the semester you are attending. As a complainant, you can therefore not be anonymous.

Your complaint must be sent from your student email, as all written correspondence with the University must take place via this.

If it is a joint complaint from several students, it must be signed by all complainants. The University needs the student number or CPR number and student email of all students who are part of the complaint. It is therefore not enough that the complaint is sent from one student's email with the other students on cc.

If a complaint from several students is sent from one student without signatures from the other students, you can expect the University to contact the other students to get their agreement to the complaint.

The recipient of your complaint will generally not know what you are complaining about. Therefore, the University needs to know what you want to complain about.

We therefore encourage you to include the following information in your complaint:

Complaints about exams

• Which exam you are complaining about
• The reason for the complaint (is it a complaint about legal issues, the basis for the exam, the exam process, the assessment or other matters related to the exam)
• When the exam was held
  
  

Complaints about the study board's decisions

• Which decision is being appealed (e.g. rejection of exemption for additional exam attempts, study inactivity rules or similar)
• Reasons for the complaint (are there legal issues such as lack of legal basis, incorrect legal basis, lack of consultation with the parties, etc.)
• Any new information (e.g. documentation in the form of a medical certificate or other) that you think is relevant to the case
  
  

Complaints about teaching or counselling

• Which module you want to complain about
• Reasons for the issues you wish to complain about regarding the teaching or counselling (e.g. lack of or inadequate guidance, issues related to the teaching or similar)
  
  

Complaints about the University's decision in a previous complaint

• Which decision is being appealed (e.g. a decision to reject an exam complaint)
• The grounds for the complaint (are there legal issues such as lack of justification, incorrect legal basis, lack of hearing, or are there academic issues such as that you still believe that you have received the wrong assessment)
• Whether you wish to appeal legal issues (to the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science), professional issues (to a board of appeals) or both.
• Any new information that you feel is relevant to the case
  
  

Complaints about credit transfer

• Which decision is being complained about
• Reasons for the complaint (are there legal issues such as lack of justification, incorrect legal basis, lack of consultation with the parties, or are there professional issues such as you believe that you should be awarded more or less credit)
• Any new information that you believe is relevant to the case
  
  

Complaint about the University's decision in a disciplinary case

• Which decision is being appealed against
• The grounds for the complaint (are there legal issues such as lack of legal basis, incorrect legal basis, lack of consultation with the parties, lack of proportionality or similar)
• Any new information (e.g. documentation in the form of a medical certificate or other) that you think is relevant to the case
  
  

Complaints about admission

• What decision is being complained about (e.g. refusal of admission, enrolment or similar)
• Reasons for the complaint (are there legal issues such as lack of justification, wrong legal basis, lack of consultation or other)
• Any new information (e.g. documentation in the form of a medical certificate or other) that you believe is relevant to the case
  
  

Complaints about matters concerning SU

You can read more about complaints about SU at How to complain | SU

To ensure the best possible basis for making a decision on your complaint, it is important that you justify your complaint as specifically and in detail as possible, preferably with examples. You should also state in your complaint if you believe that legal errors have been made in your case or in connection with your exam.