15.4 Are there guidelines as to whether separate study programmes or variants within a study programme should be designed?

Study programs are often offered in different forms – as a basic course, as a dual course, as a part-time course, as a part-time course, as an English-language course, etc. etc. Or, based on a subject-specific core, there are often options for different specializations or concentrations.
Unless otherwise stipulated by state legislation, higher education institutions are free to decide for accreditation purposes whether these forms or specializations are offered as independent study programmes or as variants within the same study programme.
It should be noted that the object of assessment and thus the subject of accreditation is always the entire study programme. The possibility of excluding individual variants, i.e. study forms, specializations or majors, within a study programme from accreditation does not exist in the new Accreditation system.
The question of whether different specializations can be offered within a study programme, which lead to different degree designations (e.g. B.A. and B.Sc.), was already answered positively in the old Accreditation system, cf. http://archiv. akkreditierungsrat.de/fileadmin/Seiteninhalte/AR/Sonstige/AR_Rundschreiben_Abschlussbezeichnungen2.pdf