Campus

Nomenclature

Find terms

To search the names the UOC has given to its programmes, faculties, departments, units, offices, institutional bodies and certain positions, go to nomenclatura.uoc.edu.

These terms are given in four languages and are subject to updates in keeping with the university's constant evolution. Should you care to make any observations or suggestions, please write to serveiling@uoc.edu.

Name of the university

In all languages and contexts, our university's name is Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (it remains untranslated) or UOC.

In spoken English, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya's abbreviated name is an initialism, so it is spelled out U - O - C (/juː - əʊ - siː/). This contrasts with usage in Catalan and Spanish, in which it is an acronym, pronounced /wɒk/.

UOC-specific capitalization

The UOC nomenclature uses title case for the names of:

  • programmes, e.g. the Bachelor's Degree in Catalan Language and Literature; courses, e.g. Introduction to Patents and Intellectual Property Protection; and microcredentials, e.g. Key Factors and Basic Tools for Medical Writing;
  • faculties, e.g. the Faculty of Health Sciences;
  • administrative departments and units, e.g. the Globalization and Cooperation department or the Scientific Support Unit; and
  • chairs, e.g. the UNESCO Chair in E-Learning.

This contrasts with the use of sentence case in the following contexts.

There is no need to capitalize generic references to words such as bachelor's or master's. For example:

This academic year the UOC is offering 27 bachelor's degrees.


Likewise, there is no need to capitalize the names of disciplines when referring to them generically. For instance:

Oller studied law at university.

 

This same logic can be applied to references to titles and ranks. Capitalize them when they refer to a specific person and could theoretically be replaced by that person's name without affecting the sentence's grammatical accuracy or meaning. Lowercase them when they are generic references to the office or position itself. Thus:

The rector is assisted by the vice rectors and the general manager, whose job it is to oversee the everyday running of the university.

 

The Vice Rector for Research, Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship described the new project to attendees.

 

For more information on the UOC's specific preferences with regard to capitalization, see the Capitalization section in Style.