Handbook: Awards

1. 1. Nomenclature

1. All award titles must indicate the qualification category and accurately represent the field of study or discipline as classified by the Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED). [HESF 1.5.6.a]
2. The qualification category must be capitalised.
3. The field of study must be capitalised.
4. The title must:

1. readily and unambiguously identify the level, broad disciplinary content, and (where applicable) professional orientation of the program;
2. be readily recognisable by prospective students, employers, professional bodies, and other stakeholders;
3. be consistent with nomenclature that has national and international acceptance, if it exists;
4. be sustainable in the long term;
5. be consistent across a suite of related awards; and
6. not include reference to corporate structures such as Colleges or Schools, except that programs accredited as at 31 December 2025 may continue to use such nomenclature.

5. For all awards, the separator 'of' should be used between the qualification category and the discipline area, e.g. Bachelor of Chemistry, Graduate Certificate of Chemistry, Master of Chemistry.
6. If an award is a double degree the two degrees must be separated by a ‘/’ (forward slash) in both the full name and the abbreviation.
7. Information in parentheses may be used in the following cases only:

1. For one-year AQF Level 8 Bachelor Honours Degrees, “(Honours)” is to be used to qualify the level of the award;
2. For four-year AQF Level 8 Bachelor Honours Degrees:
   1. “(Honours)” is to be used to qualify the level of the award;
   2. “(Advanced)” may be used where there is a non-advanced version of the award;
   3. For AQF Level 9 Masters Degrees (Coursework), where the program orders require completion of a thesis of at least 24 units, “(Advanced)” may be used to qualify the level of the award;
   4. For fully online programs where the mode is to be indicated in the program name, “(Online)” is to be used to qualify the mode of the award.

8. To avoid doubt, information in parentheses is not used to describe the field(s) of study.
9. Titles for awards that articulate into each other must be consistent.
10. In full award titles, ‘and’ is represented by the text ‘and’, not by an ampersand (‘&’).
11. All doctorate research programs are classified ‘Doctor of Philosophy’ unless alternative forms are approved by Academic Board on the basis of professional accreditation requirements.
12. Including any augmentations or information in parentheses, award nomenclature is to be no greater than 79 characters in total length, including spaces, to allow appropriate display on a graduand’s testamur across no more than two lines.
13. The names of awards, majors, minors, specialisations, and augmentations are not revised after introduction except in cases of administrative error such as a misspelling of a term. All other changes to names are to be effected by disestablishment of the former offering and introduction of a new award, major, minor, specialisation, or augmentation with the new name.

1.2 Coursework nomenclature

14. All coursework programs comply with the nomenclature specifications detailed in Table 1: Coursework Nomenclature. Compliance is considered at the time of proposal, amendment, or review.
15. When an award contains a qualified field of study, this augmentation must relay significant specific disciplinary content. Master of Arts in International Relations would be an example of an appropriate augmentation, while Master of Arts in Humanities and Social Sciences would not.
16. When an award is an augmented version of another program with the same basic form of title, there should be similarities in program structure or learning outcomes between the two. For example, a Master of Science, a Master of Science in Environment, and a Master of Science in Chemistry should have a basic structural relationship; if this is not the case, then a specific title is more appropriate and the degree should satisfy the requirements for a Narrow Field Named Award.
17. In an augmented degree, where a non-augmented version exists there should be a mechanism for students to move between augmentations or to the non-augmented version. For example, a student who has enrolled in Master of Science in Psychology should be able, if their interests or abilities have changed, to transfer to a Master of Science without significant loss of credit.
18. A Narrow Field Named Award should not have further detail listed in the Award title through an augmentation. For example, a Master of Marketing should not be further detailed as a Master of Marketing in Advertising, but a Master of Commerce may be augmented with ‘Marketing’ or ‘Advertising’ as the Master of Commerce is a Broad Field Named Award.

Table 1: Coursework nomenclature

1.3 Award post-nominals

19. A post-nominal is the shortened way for graduands to refer to attainment of an award. Graduands may reference a post-nominal in letterhead, business cards, and other official communications. When used in practice, ‘ANU´ may be placed after the post-nominal in italics.
20. A post-nominal is created by compiling a number of abbreviations, referencing both the type of award and the discipline in which it has been studied.
21. Post-nominals are meaningful, easily recognisable, free from possible negative connotations and comply with the list of approved abbreviations detailed under Table 2: Award Abbreviations and Table 3: Discipline Abbreviations.
22. New post-nominals not detailed under Table 2: Award Abbreviations and Table 3: Discipline Abbreviations comply with ISO 4: 1997 international standards for title word abbreviations, and are submitted for endorsement of the Registrar and approval of Academic Board.
23. An exception to (4) above may be endorsed by the Registrar and approved by Academic Board on the basis of a written case. Exceptions must comply with the following principles:

1. An abbreviation for a single discipline/field of study does not normally exceed six characters.
2. The same abbreviation is not used for unrelated disciplines.
3. If an accepted international form has been established, this is used.
4. Multiple abbreviations for the one discipline/field of study are not used.
5. Post-nominals do not include spaces or punctuations between any letters.
6. The first letter of each abbreviated word is capitalised.
7. Post-nominals use no more than 20 characters in total.
8. ‘And’ should be represented by an ampersand (‘&’) not by the text ‘and’.
9. Post-nominals do not include parentheses, brackets, or other delimiting characters such as dashes.

24. Post-nominals for an award are not greater than 20 characters in total. Where compliance with the abbreviations in Table 3 would result in a post-nominal of greater than 20 characters, an alternate abbreviation is submitted for endorsement of the Registrar and approval of Academic Board following the process detailed in (5) above.
25. Table 4 details exceptions to standard approved post-nominals as compiled from Tables 2 and 3, on the basis of international standards.

Table 2: Award abbreviations

Table 3: Discipline abbreviations

Table 4: Approved exceptions to Tables 2 and 3 on the basis of international standards