This page defines the terms and conditions (the "Terms") that govern your use of this educational website (the "Website") when you register and become a student (a "Student") of this course (the "Course"). If you do not agree with these Terms do not use this Website.
As expected, Terms aim at promoting the highest quality standards for the benefit of a vast majority of Students, at the expense of rules that try to limit the abuse of few. For most of you, these Terms really give you the Right to use all the resources and advice (the "Material") you can reasonably obtain from this Website for your own personal development--to our best ability of providing it.

Academic Standards & Accreditation

This website is exclusively reserved for regular students ("Students") and teachers (the "Teacher") from the Swedish Netuniversity, the Gdansk University of Technology in Poland and Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. Even if part of the Material is freely accessible on the Web, it is only possible to guarantee the highest level of academic standards (the "Standards") required to deliver a course certificate (the "Certificate") and academic accreditation through personal interaction between the Teacher and regular Students. This section defines the learning method and the academic Standards that have to be met to qualify for a Certificate based on a system of credits (the "Bonus" points) and marks (the "Grades"). Ultimately, it remains however the Teacher's responsibility and judgment to decide if a Student meets the Standards or not.

Method: Problem-Based Learning with a System of Bonuses
The Material is structured in modules that may be combined in various manners according to the level of understanding and the mathematical refinement the Student wants to reach in his learning scheme. The work in each module is organized as follows:

the Students first carefully listen to the video lecture, browse through the syllabus and get acquainted with the new knowledge in a passive learning phase simply by following the Teacher's line of thought.
In the second active learning phase, the Students reproduce the reasoning and test their understanding by changing the parameters in the applets. A computer quiz is provided in the syllabus on-line and should be carried out at the end of each active learning phase to ensure that the material has been correctly assimilated. Neither is graded nor rewarded with Bonus points.
Questions are asked and answered anytime in the discussion groups (the "Forums"): the classroom Forum (the "Classroom") is moderated by the Teacher and the individual contributions are rewarded (with 1-5 Bonus points depending on the quality of the question, the answer or the discussion).
Assignments aim at applying the new knowledge and are designed to deepen the level of understanding in an interactive problem based learning context. Regular Students submit their solutions to the Teacher and get feed-back in the form of suggestions for improvements or corrections until the solution is finally accepted and is then signalled as "Passed". The work is then rewarded with a predetermined 5-30 Bonus points depending on the assignment and evaluated with a Grade in the range 5-10 depending on the quality of the solution.
Particularly nice solutions are shared for reference (the "Reference solutions") with other Students from the class who finish and Passed this assignment.
At the end of every module, the Students are kindly requested to fill-in an evaluation form, aiming for a continuous improvement of the Material as it is discovered during the course.

Modules	Bonus
1. Introduction	20
2. A Variety of Securities	20
3. Forecasting with Uncertainty	20
4. European Payoff Dynamics	20
5. Bond, Swaps & Derivatives	20
6. American Payoff Dynamics	20
Forums Discussions	30
Total Bonus points required	150

The table displayed on the right shows how many Bonus points have to be acquired separately in different modules to qualify for the course Certificate. Note the importance attributed to Forum discussions, which are an integral part of the course and are mandatory. The grades attributed for the assignments are only provided for an internal feed-back and will not affect whether the course is passed.

Netuniversity course in financial modeling
The course is based on the original version taught 2002-2003 to engineering students at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the Swedish Netuniversity. The material has been considerably simplified during the summer 2004, allowing students with a more basic mathematical knowledge to acquire an intuitive, but nevertheless quantitative understanding of advanced models that are used in the industry. Regular interactions with the Teacher and peers provide an individualized support anytime / anywhere to perform the assignments, understand the parameters and solve relatively advanced practical problems. On successful completion of the requirements, the Students recieve a Certificate explaining that they met all the conditions for a course taught for an equivalent of 4 weeks full time work--an intermediate accreditation that may directly reward part-time student by recognition of their own company.

Rules of conduct and Rights

This section defines the rules of conduct (the "Rules") that have to be accepted by every Student before he is given the permission (the "Right") to register for an account (the "Account"), download and / or create new Material on this Website. Misconduct will generally first be signalled by sending an e-mail to the Student and, depending on the Teacher judgment, by temporarily blocking the Account until an explanation is received. In severe cases, the Teacher keeps the right to contact the local academic authorities and to radiate a student from the Course with no refund of the tuition fees.

Syllabus and the VMARKET applet

To share the knowledge with everyone who is willing to learn irrespective of his origin, background and financial condition, the web edition of the syllabus is distributed free of charge. Copies may therefore be reproduced for non-commercial educational purposes provided that the copyright notice below is properly referenced.
The VMARKET applet in particular can be used as much as you want: once loaded into your browser's cache, the only computing resources that are used are yours! It is however necessary to login to be allowed to modify the run parameters.
In return for a free access to the syllabus, users are kindly asked to point out possible miss prints, particularly as the content is now constantly updated and expanded.

Application / registration / tuition fees

Only the students who are officially registered in the Swedish academic system (Ladok) are sponsored by the Swedish government and can open an learning account (the "Account") free of charge on this website. To register, participants must first fill-in an application form (select Ansökan), then complete the registration form (Swedish residents provide 10 digits personal number, others the date of birth in the form YYMMDD), and finally must agree with the Terms from this web page.

User Account

User Accounts are strictly personal and cannot be shared between different Students.
For the protection of personal data, the user access code (the "Password") should remain secret at all times.
To prevent other users who may have access to the same terminal from entering the Account without permission, steal or destroy data, it is the Student's responsibility to always LOGOUT and CLOSE the web browser at the end of each learning session. This will in effect empty the cache where an encrypted "cookie" is temporarily stored to grant temporary access.

Video-Lectures

They replace the regular classroom lectures and are best viewed together with a web browser opened on the top of the syllabus to follow the Teacher's line of thought.
The sound is transmitted without too much difficulty even over a 28 KB/sec modem, but a broadband network connection is more comfortable for a good picture quality.

Discussion Forum

The Forum is used exclusively for questions, answers and discussions related with the Course and its applications. The tone is informal and everyone identifies himself only with his / her user name.
To prevent cheating and harassment, messages with an e-mail, telephone and indeed any kind of address that creates a hidden link between distance learning Students outside the Forum is prohibited.
Direct help and advice from the Teacher will be provided both in the form of corrections of assignments and more general discussions in the Forum.

Assignments

To have the legal permission to publish the solutions of assignments on the web, the copyright belongs both to the Student and the owner of the website.
The solutions web-pages will be stored for a minimum of 2 years after registration. To allow other students to benefit from the same distance learning environment, the solutions are not to be distributed and cannot be linked from the outside world.
For a stable documentation of the work, Students are encouraged to download the solutions in Postscript format and to print them on regular paper that can be stored for reference.

General License for the Material on this Website

All information, documents, products, software, and services provided on this Website are the copyrighted work of the Authors, the Teachers, the Students and the Third Party Providers.

Copyright Notice

Financial Modeling: Options, Swaps and Derivatives http://www.lifelong-learners.com/opt TRITA-NA-0306 Report Copyright © 2005 A.Jaun Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden and Lifelong-learners All rights reserved.

Permission
This License is intended to give you legal permission to download, edit and/or modify the Material from this Website for educational purposes including learning and teaching your own course, provided that:

you properly fill-in the registration form,
the copyright notice is properly referenced in your own course,
the use of the Material is solely for non-commercial use and doesn't interfere with the activity promoted by this Website.

Without express written permission from one of the Authors, this permission is otherwise not granted. The permission terminates automatically without notice if you breach any of the Terms. Upon termination, you will immediately destroy any downloaded and printed Material. Any unauthorized use of any Material contained on this Website may violate copyright laws, trademark laws, the laws of privacy and publicity, and communications regulations and statutes. The Authors can revise the Terms at any time without notice by updating this posting.

Terms

A few minutes after registering, you will automatically receive an e-mail with your personal access code. You may then immediately access most the Material and start your studies.
You are not allowed to communicate your access code and / or "mirror" the downloaded Material in the present or modified form on any other server.
You may however distribute and / or publish part of the Material, provided that it is for non-commercial and educational use and the copyright notice is properly referenced in your course.
You may not copy, modify, sub license, or distribute the Material except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sub license or distribute the Material is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Material or its derivatives. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Material (or any work based on the Material), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Material or works based on it.

No Warranty

This Website could include inaccuracies or typographical errors. The Authors and the Third Party Providers may make improvements and / or changes in the Material described in this Website at any time without notice. Changes are periodically made to the Website and corrections / suggestions from licensees to the Webmaster are most welcome.
Because the Material is exclusively for educational use and often builds on the forefront of research carried out in this field, there is no warranty to the extent permitted by applicable law. The Material is made available "as is"; should part prove defective, you assume the cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction.
In no event unless agreed to in writing will any copyright holder be liable to you for damages, including any general, special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use the Material (including but not limited to loss of data or data being rendered inaccurate or losses sustained by you or third parties or a failure of the program to operate with any other programs), even if such holder or other party has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Third Party Content Disclaimer
The Authors are committed to respecting others' intellectual property rights, and we ask our users to do the same. Materials provided by Third Party Providers have not been independently authenticated in whole or in part by the Authors. The Authors do not provide, sell, license, or lease any of the Material other than the one specifically identified as being provided by them.