Matching Platform
General Overview and Manuals
Course Assignment System
Previously, the allocation of course places at the faculty was done via a manual two-round process, which meant a lot of work for everyone involved. Students liked to apply for several courses in order to be sure of getting a course place, which subsequently led to a lot of organisational work for the administration and course instructors.
The new matching system implements a mechanism that avoids these problems. In particular, the algorithm ensures two important points:
- It is disadvantageous for students not to disclose their true preferences. They have no advantage if they do not indicate possible courses or deposit a wrong order in the system.
- The result is stable in the sense that a subsequent swap of individual applicants cannot benefit anyone.
On this page you will find an overview, short instructions and FAQs for students and course instructors. Should you have any further questions, please feel free to send an email to matching@ma.tum.de.
Brief Instructions
For Students
Approximately one week before the matching phase begins, the list of courses will be published on the faculty homepage. First read the description of the courses offered and the necessary prerequisites and then decide which courses are suitable for you and which you would prefer to take. In some cases, the course instructors offer preliminary meetings where you can get more information and get a personal impression of the course instructors. You may also be required to provide additional information (e.g. a letter of motivation, a CV or grades from relevant lectures), which you will need to send directly to the course instructors.
After the beginning of the voting period, log into the matching system with your TUMonline account. Select all courses that come into question for you and arrange them according to your preferences. Important: Incorrect information is to your own disadvantage! If you state your preferences truthfully and completely, you will get the best possible result for you. You can find proof of this in the article by Dubins and Freedman .
At the end of the application phase, the course instructors can view the applications and also indicate their preferences. At the end of this phase, the system calculates a matching and the result can be seen again on the matching platform. A little later, you will be automatically enrolled for the course on TUMonline.
If you do not receive a place on any course during the matching process, you can then apply directly to the course instructors for available places. Information about available places will be published on the faculty homepage after the matching process has been completed.
If you would like to take a second course at the same time, you can contact the respective course instructors after the matching phase and apply for one of the available places. Our initial focus is to enable every student to take part in a course; applications for more than one course place cannot therefore be mapped in the matching system.
For Course Instructors
As usual, you submit the information about your course via an online form on the faculty homepage. If a preliminary meeting is planned or if you need additional documents for the application (such as a CV or a current transcript), please indicate this in the description. You can also specify prerequisites (e.g. required modules) for your course. The capacities for Bachelor's and Master's students that you specify in the form will be transferred to the matching system, but you can still change them during the application and ranking phase before the final matching is calculated.
A list of the courses offered will be published for the students on the homepage of the faculty, where you can also see the information you have additionally provided. Students can then log into the matching system at the beginning of the voting period, select the courses they are eligible for and indicate their preferences.
After the application phase has ended, we will ask you to log into the matching system with your TUMonline account. You will then have access to the list of applicants for your course. Select which students you could include in your course and indicate their preferences. You can assign the same rank to groups of students and exclude unsuitable applicants from the course. Likewise, you can change the capacities for Bachelor's and Master's students once again before the matching is calculated. Please be sure to save your changes before logging out and closing the page.
When the ranking phase is finished, the matching system automatically calculates a match of the applications to the available course places, taking into account both the students' and the course leaders' preferences. The participants will also be registered for the respective course on TUMonline a little later.
The course instructors have the right to exclude applicants from a course even after the matching process has been completed if the specified requirements are not met.