CourseFinderHelp

The Course Finder is the first national, searchable online resource for courses offered by Australian Universities and higher education providers that have been approved under the Higher Education Support Act 2003

. You can use the Course Finder to search for courses and compare them by a variety of criteria.

The quick search pane allows you to search by course name, course type, higher education provider and distance education. You can use any one of these search fields, or a combination of them, to find higher education courses across Australia.

The advanced search pane allows you to search by course entry cut-offs, course fee type, and approximate course fee. You can use any one of these search fields, or a combination of them, to find higher education courses across Australia.

If you already have an idea of what you want to study, enter a keyword into the course name field, such as architecture. The system will find and return the first 200 courses in the database where the course name or the field of study description contains the word architecture.

You also have three search options linked to the course name field: find any words, find all words, and find exact phrase. The default option is find any words, which treats your search keyword(s) as an ‘or’ search. For example, if you enter architecture design and select find any words, the system will search for courses containing the keyword architecture OR the keyword design. If you enter the word ‘or’ into the course name field, it will be ignored.

If you enter architecture design and select find all words, the system will search for courses containing the keywords architecture AND design. If you enter the word ‘and’ into the course name field, it will be ignored.

If you enter architecture design and select find exact phrase, the system will search for courses containing the exact phrase architecture design. This search works the same way as entering a phrase within inverted commas (such as “architecture design”). If you enter inverted commas into the course name field they will be ignored.

Keywords in the course name field are treated as ‘stem’ words without the need to enter an asterisk (*). For example, entering teach will find courses containing the keywords teacher or teaching. The exception to this is if you select find exact phrase, which would only find courses containing the keyword teach.

If you are unsure of what you want to study, or you can’t find any courses using the keyword you’re entering, visit the fields of study. These pages contain descriptions of a wide range of study subjects and can help you find more appropriate keywords for searching purposes.

The course type field is where you specify whether you are interested in undergraduate courses, postgraduate courses or both.

An undergraduate course of study leads to the award of a diploma, advanced diploma, associate degree or a bachelor degree (pass, honours or graduate entry). A postgraduate course of study leads to the award of a graduate certificate, graduate diploma, masters degree or doctorate.

You will generally need to have completed an undergraduate course of study before you can start working towards a postgraduate award.

Use this field to search for courses offered at the undergraduate or postgraduate level, or both (find courses at all levels). Both is selected by default.

The higher education provider field allows you to search for courses across multiple higher education providers. You can select higher education providers individually by clicking on them with the mouse, select multiple providers by holding down the CTRL key (or the

key for Mac users) and clicking on them with the mouse, or you can elect to search for courses across all providers in one or more States or Territories (again, by holding down the CTRL key or the

key for Mac users).

The distance education field allows you to search for courses only offered via distance education, online learning or correspondence. If you select the distance education checkbox, any selections you made in the higher education provider selection box will be ignored in the search.

Check the box to search for distance education courses only. If you leave the box unchecked, the system will search for courses offered both on campus and by distance education.

When you first visit the Course Finder you will only see the options offered on the quick search pane: course name, course type, higher education provider and distance education. Click the more search options button to see the advanced search pane, which enables you to search for courses using additional criteria: course entry cut-offs, course fee type and approximate course fees.

Entrance into a provider is determined in part by the entrance score requirements, also known as cut-offs, set by individual providers. Offers to Year 12 students are predominantly based on their higher education ranking achieved after standardisation of Year 12 scores.

To search for courses according to the previous year’s cut-off, select a range from either TER/ENTER/UAI (All states except QLD) or, for Queensland students, select a range under your OP (QLD only).

Cut-offs are searched in increments of 5 and below for ENTER/TER/UAI and increments of 3 and below for QLD OP. If searching for courses with a previous ENTER/TER/UAI cut-off of 73 you should select a range of 75 and below. If searching for courses with a previous QLD OP cut-off of 5 you should select a range of 4 and below. ENTER/TER/UAI cut-offs range from 100 (being the highest) to 1 (being the lowest), while QLD OP cut-offs range from 1 (being the highest) to 25 (being the lowest).

Note: You can only search on the previous year’s cut-off scores. Cut-off scores will vary from year to year according to demand for places in that course. For example, if you are searching by cut-offs for a course of study in 2007, your search results will return results for courses that had that cut-off in 2006.

Cut-offs are not the only method to gain entry into a course of study. Mature age entry may be based on additional criteria such as work experience and recognition of prior learning. Some courses may have other criteria such as submission of a portfolio or an audition. If this is the case the course details page will note that additional entry criteria are considered for entry to this course.

Below are the different names of higher education rankings for each state and territory.

State/Territory	Rank Name
ACT/NSW	University Admission Index (UAI)
QLD	Overall Position (OP) / Rank
NT/SA/TAS/WA	Tertiary Entrance Rank (TER)
VIC	Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank (ENTER)

As a domestic (Australian) student you can be a Commonwealth supported student or a domestic fee paying student. A Commonwealth supported student (formerly a HECS student) will occupy a higher education place for which the Commonwealth makes a contribution towards the cost of your education. If you are not a Commonwealth supported student, you will pay tuition fees which are not subsidised by the Australian Government.

Some students may be both a Commonwealth supported and domestic fee-paying student. This is dependent on whether you are in a Commonwealth supported place or a domestic fee-paying place for a unit of study*.

To search for courses that offer either Commonwealth supported places (formerly HECS), domestic fee-paying places or Commonwealth supported & fee-paying (both options), select the appropriate option. Commonwealth supported & fee-paying is selected by default.

*unit of study: a subject or unit that a person may undertake with a provider or through Open Universities Australia

(formerly OLA) that could be undertaken as part of a course of study. Parts of a bridging course for overseas trained professionals are also considered units of study.

To search on this field, you must have selected one of the options under course fee type.

This field is used to give you a guide to approximately how much a full-time student could expect to pay in their first year of study. This does not include incidental costs such as student union fees, materials or textbooks.

Enter the amount you would be willing to pay for your course in your first year of full-time study in the field provided. Do not include dollars, cents or decimals in the search field.

If you select Commonwealth supported under course fee type, your results will include only those courses where the approximate course fee for a Commonwealth supported place is equal to or less than the amount you entered in the search field.

If you select fee-paying under course fee type, your results will include only those courses where the approximate course fee for a domestic fee-paying place is equal to or less than the amount you entered in the search field.

If you select Commonwealth supported & fee-paying under course fee type, your results will include courses where the approximate course fee for either the Commonwealth supported place or the domestic fee paying place is equal to or less than the amount you entered in the search field.

To calculate the approximate fee for an entire course, multiply the course length by the approximate full-time first-year fee.

Example: Four years full-time X Approximate full-time first-year fee $3,200 = Approximate course fee $12,800.

The search results screen displays the courses that match your selected search criteria. You will see the higher education provider name, the course name, the course length, and the type of qualification or award the course leads to.

The search results list is limited to 200 matching results. You will be prompted to refine your search criteria if more than 200 matching results have been found.

At the top of the screen you will see a summary of the search criteria you selected, as well as a count of the number of matching courses found.

Courses are returned in alphabetical order, first grouped under the relevant higher education provider, and then alphabetically by the course name. Click the

links at the top of each column to re-order the results alphabetically or reverse-alphabetically by the selected column.

To view a course, click on the course name to be taken directly to the course details page for that course. You can also select multiple courses for viewing by clicking in the checkboxes to the left of the course name, or select all courses on that page by clicking select all and then clicking the view selected button at the bottom of the screen. Clicking de-select all will erase any selections you have made.

To compare two or three courses, click in the checkboxes to the left of the course name and click the compare courses button at the bottom of the screen. This will take you to a screen where you can compare the course details at a glance.

Please note that if you select courses to view or compare and then re-order the results, you may not be able to see which courses you have selected on the search results screen.

Each page of the search results displays up to 10 courses matching your search criteria. If your search has returned more than 10 courses, you can use the << prev and next >> links to navigate to other pages within your search results, or jump directly to a page by clicking the page number link (for example, 10).

If you find you have returned too many search results, or that you didn’t find what you wanted, you can either click the refine search button or the search button. Clicking the search button will return you to the quick search screen and will clear any selections you previously made. Clicking the refine search button will return you to the advanced search screen, retaining any selections you previously made.

What does the compare courses screen show?

The compare courses screen displays a summary of the details of the courses you have selected to compare in an easy-to-view table format. You can compare course fees, cut-offs and other course information at a glance on this screen. You can also select one or more of the courses you are comparing and view the course details screen for each of these courses by clicking the view selected button at the bottom of the screen.

The course details screen displays more detailed information about the course(s) you have selected to view. Listed at the top of the screen is the year the course is being offered, the higher education provider offering the course and the campus at which the course is being offered, the full course name, the qualification or award the course leads to, which field(s) of study it falls under, the length of the course, and where you can apply for entry to the course. There are direct links provided to the higher education provider and the organisation where you can apply for entry to the course, whether this is through a Tertiary Admission Centre or directly to the provider.

Below this section you will find information on the approximate course fee, and if the course is an undergraduate course you can also find information on previous course entry cut-offs and the current intake year’s eligibility score.

The approximate course fee is intended to be used as a guide to approximately how much a student could expect to pay for the first year of full-time study in that course. You should confirm the exact cost with the higher education provider before making your decision. Providers submit their schedule of fees to the Going to Uni website in October of each year.

The previous entry cut-offs for the course is to be used as a guide to the cut-off score you may need to achieve in order to be accepted into the course. Cut-off scores vary according to demand for places.

The eligibility score is a score determined by the higher education provider as the lowest score at which any student may be considered eligible for a place in that course, whether the student is Commonwealth supported or domestic fee-paying.

The fields of study are a list of all the areas of study offered by higher education providers. There are three levels: broad, narrow and detailed.

To browse the fields of study just click on the link of an area in which you are interested to be taken to a more detailed description of that field of study. Once you’ve found a Detailed field of study you are interested in you can click the link to search the Course Finder for courses that fall under that field.

If you are unsure of what you would like to study, just enter the name of the subject on which you would like to find more information, (for example, architecture) into the search field. The fields of study search will return all fields of study with architecture in the field of study name or description.

You also have three search options linked to the search field: find any words, find all words, and find exact phrase. The default option is find any words, which treats your search keyword(s) as an ‘or’ search. For example, if you enter architecture design and select find any words, the system will search for fields of study containing the keyword architecture OR the keyword design. If you enter the word ‘or’ into the search field, it will be ignored.

If you enter architecture design and select find all words, the system will search for fields of study containing the keywords architecture AND design. If you enter the word ‘and’ into the search field, it will be ignored.

If you enter architecture design and select find exact phrase, the system will search for fields of study containing the exact phrase architecture design. This search works the same way as entering a phrase within inverted commas (such as “architecture design”). If you enter inverted commas into the search field they will be ignored.

Keywords in the search field are treated as ‘stem’ words without the need to enter an asterisk (*). For example, entering teach will find fields of study containing the keywords teacher or teaching. The exception to this is if you select find exact phrase, which would only find fields of study containing the keyword teach.

Once you’ve found a Detailed field of study you are interested in, you can click the link to search the Course Finder for courses that fall under that field.

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