Certificates and Guidelines

§ 1 Record of Achievement

Those who register for study in an active course at openHPI can receive a record of achievement (4-6 weeks course) or a confirmation of participation (2-weeks course) for their course performance.

§ 2 Course Participation

There are no admission restrictions regarding course participation.
We recommend that course participants take part in all of the modules, work through the complete course material and check their knowledge by means of the self-tests. Active participation in the discussion forums and learning groups provides further deepening of the acquired knowledge.

§ 3 Requirements for Record of Achievement

  1. Every week of the course contains a graded exercise. This must be completed by a certain deadline which is announced in the course. The last week of the course is to be used for the final exam. The 2-weeks workshops and the 4-weeks hands-on courses may be structured differently. Additionally, the teaching team can offer bonus exercises at its own discretion.
  2. Exercises and the final exam take the form of multiple-choice tests, practical programming exercises or peer assessments. In order to participate, course members must be logged in to the learning system with their name and password.
  3. The coursework and examination will be in German or English, depending on the language in which the course is offered.
  4. A record of achievement is received by those who have earned more than 50 percent of the maximum number of points for the sum of all homework and the final exam. Whoever has not achieved this may receive a confirmation of participation, as long as he or she has completed at least 50 percent of the course material.

§ 4 Evaluation of Exam Performance

  1. Exercises and examinations consist of multiple-choice tasks (with one correct answer), multiple-answer tasks (with multiple correct solutions), practical programming exercises, peer assessment, or a combination of them. There is a clearly defined number of points for every task that can be earned with the correct solution.
  2. With multiple-answer tasks the number of points achieved for a partially correct solution is calculated in the following way. The maximum number of points is divided by the number of correct alternatives and this value is used as the base. For every right alternative that has been correctly selected, the base value will be given. For every false alternative, the base value will be subtracted. If the total result is negative, then 0 points are given. For example, a maximum of 3 points are possible for one task. Three out of five answers are correct. The student has marked two correct and one false. For both of the correct answers, he receives one point each (3 divided by 3), for the false answer one point is subtracted. He, therefore, receives one point for the task.
  3. The peer assessment consists of different phases. To learn more about the process and the grading in the peer assessment, click here: https://open.hpi.de/pages/p_a?locale=en
  4. For programming exercises often the programming platform CodeOcean is used. The participant can solve the task directly in the web browser. If he/she submits his solution, the gained points are transmitted to openHPI via a standardized interface (LTI).

§ 5 Issuing the Record of Achievement

  1. openHPI is collecting the results of homework and final exam.
  2. After successfully completing all of the course requirements, the record of achievement will be made available through the participant's profile page on openHPI. The performance evaluation in the record of achievement is based on the paragraphs presented in these guidelines. The record of achievement is signed by the teacher of the attended MOOC. On the record of achievement the participant's e-mail address (stated in the openHPI enrollment process) is mentioned. At present, this e-mail address serves as a reliable verification feature.
  3. Please take into consideration that it can take up to two weeks before the records of achievement are issued.

certificates

Confirmation of Participation

You are eligible for a Confirmation of Participation if you have visited at least 50 per cent of the course material.
The Confirmation of Participation contains the following information: Name of the participant, date of birth (optional), course title and summary.

Record of Achievement

You are eligible for a Record of Achievement if you have earned more than 50 per cent of the available points in the weekly assignments and the final exam. The Record of Achievement contains the following information:

  • Participant's name
  • Date of birth (optional)
  • Course title and summary
  • Credits earned
  • Course performance (if you're among the top 5%, 10%, or 20% of participants)
  • Anti-counterfeit link and QR code

Certificate

NOTE: openHPI is not offering this type of certificate at the moment. Users who have achieved this type of certificate can still download it.

Features
A Certificate contains the participant’s photo and a supplement with detailed course information.

The participant agrees to be proctored via webcam during the graded exercises and exams. With the help of online proctoring, we ensure that only the registered user is taking the assignments and the final exam.

If the participant has booked the Certificate, they will receive a Record of Achievement and a Confirmation of Participation, as long as they fulfil the requirements.

ECTS credits

HPI recommends granting 2 ECTS for a Certificate.

If you intend to receive university credits for an openHPI course, please contact your examination office first to make sure that your university accepts the certificate. We have prepared a sample certificate and an explanation to present to your examination office, which is available for download here:

>>Sample

This page was last changed at Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:41:06 +0000.