Study Load Planner

Find out if your study workload is realistic — before it's too late.

User Manual

Overview

Study Load Planner is a browser-based tool that estimates the total time required to complete your studies for a given period. It works by combining the official credit-based time budget for each subject with the actual reading and viewing time of uploaded course materials.

The interface has three steps: Subjects, Study Materials, and Overview.

Step 1 – Subjects (Vakken)

Setting hours per credit

At the top, set how many hours one study credit (studiepunt) represents. The standard range is 25–30 hours per credit. Use the slider to select the value used at your institution.

Adding a subject

Click Vak toevoegen (Add subject). Enter the subject name and the number of credits it carries. The tool automatically calculates the time budget: credits × hours per credit.

The total credits counter at the top tracks your accumulation against a reference of 60 credits (a typical full academic year).

Importing from KU Leuven

Instead of typing each subject, you can import them from a KU Leuven study programme:

Paste import (Programma importeren): open the programme page on onderwijsaanbod.kuleuven.be, select all, copy and paste. Name, credits and semester are filled in automatically. Contact hours are not on that page, so the Contacturen column stays editable for you to complete.
Automatic import (KU Leuven proxy): paste a programme or course-sheet URL and the planner retrieves name, credits, semester and contact hours automatically. You can pick a single phase (study year) so you import only the year you need. This requires a small free proxy — see the KU Leuven Proxy Setup guide.

Step 2 – Study Materials (Studiemateriaal)

Selecting a subject

First choose which subject you're adding materials to from the Kies een vak (Choose a subject) dropdown.

Uploading files

Drag and drop files onto the upload area, or click to browse. Supported file types:

Text files: .txt, .md, .html
Documents: .pdf, .docx, .doc
Presentations: .pptx, .ppt
Videos: .mp4, .webm, .mov, and other common formats

The planner extracts word counts from documents and reading time is estimated at 250 words per minute. Video duration is read directly from the file.

Adding video URLs

For online videos (lectures, tutorials), paste the URL using the Video-URL toevoegen (Add video URL) button. The planner will fetch the video duration.

Step 3 – Overview (Overzicht)

The overview shows a bar for each subject comparing:

Estimated load — contact hours + reading time of all materials + video duration.
Budget — credits × hours per credit.

Colour coding:

Red — the estimated load exceeds the credit budget. You may have too much material or too few credits allocated.
Blue — the load is within budget.

Note: Reading speed and video duration are estimates. Difficult texts or dense slides may take longer than the tool predicts. Use the overview as a guide, not a guarantee.

Privacy

All files are processed locally in your browser using pdf.js and JSZip. No files or personal data are uploaded to any server. The optional KU Leuven import uses your own proxy to read public course pages; no personal data is involved.