Academic course credit, credit hour, and unit of credit are all terms that refer to a unit of measure used by higher education institutions to place a value on the amount of time or learning a course's content encompasses. Each course offered by an institution is assigned a value of how many credits or units it is worth. When students have completed the course content satisfactorily, they are awarded the appropriate number of units or credits on their transcript. Courses are the basis on which an academic transcript is built. Other degree requirements, such as practica, internships, comprehensive examinations, theses, or dissertations, may also be represented as courses on the transcript and assigned credit hour values.