Towards a digitalisation of ERASMUS, really?!?
Erasmus Without Paper (EWP): the new revolutionary plateforme to promote student mobility and finally get rid of paperwork
Last week in Sevilla was held the EAIE Congress which aimed to discuss international mobility and the new trends in higher education. One of the highlighted topic was the project of Erasmus: Erasmus without paper (EWP).
This year, Erasmus celebrated his 30th anniversary. Since his launch, the program allowed European students to cross borders to study, learn and exchange from anywhere in Europe. This year, it was more than 200,000 students from over 2,000 higher education institutions that took part in the Erasmus program. This 30th anniversary was also the time to review and focus on the entire exchange process: its strengths and its weaknesses.
Both University staff and students agree on the fact that the Erasmus administrative process is inefficient, repetitive and time consuming. It has become obvious that the process of sending students abroad is beyond difficult.
The international relations services at universities say it themselves: 95% of their tasks are repetitive administrative-related actions and only 5% of their time is dedicated to support students in mobility and to the creation of new international opportunities for both professors and students.
The current Erasmus process is clearly a barrier to international mobility.
That is why, the project of EWP came up. The new version of Erasmus was developed in collaboration with 1000 universities all together. EWP was created and designed to fix those issues and to be used by all the European University staff.
Erasmus without paper (EWP) is defined as an integrated communication network supporting paper. It is “supposed” to be in used by 2020.
What is the problem?
The 30 year-old administrative Erasmus exchange process, which had been originally created to facilitate the mobility in Europe revealed to be a very complicated process. Everything is handled manually.
Here is a brief description of the current Erasmus process:
- The student who wants to study abroad has to find where to study and what courses to study among a data base in the form of an excel file sent by his international coordinator with all the courses available in every university partner.
- The student then looks at each course and makes sure, on his own, that they are available in the session he is applying for and match with the courses he has to take to graduate in his home university. The application process takes many criteria in consideration. It depends mainly on the student profile, grades, degree specifications… Also, each university has its own requirements and some of them require the students to take a language test or have a portfolio… Each specificity that has to be acknowledged by the student in order to be eligible for the given partner.
- Once the course chosen, the student provides all the necessary documents to his international coordinator which then has to send them manually by email to the chosen partner university.
Consequently, many communication issues emerge from this back and forth process: loss of documents, high level of stress from both international coordinators and students, and more generally inefficiency in the whole process. Imagine having to follow up on the application process of one student when hundreds of students are applying abroad.
Consequently, many students simply give up even before trying the application process while others simply get lost among the different steps/documents to provide and fail to go finish up.
ERASMUS WITHOUT PAPER : THE SOLUTION ?
EWP was created with the aim to fix all those issues. The platform will centralise all the communication and administrative process between the Home University and Host University.
With the EWP platform, international coordinators and students will have a log-in access. It will simplify the process by centralising all the documents uploaded such as personal student info, nominations, learning agreements, arrival departures certificates, home transcript records and host transcript records in one single place and accessible by the 3 parties: the student, the home university coordinator and the host university coordinator.
The goal is to create a network, send and structure a database between universities, and also to have a secure platform in order to protect all the sensitive documents (passport, visa..).
A beta version of Erasmus (EWP) is already used by thousands of universities worldwide to ensure that the new process is adapted to the daily tasks of international coordinators and to receive their feedback.
Until now, Universities welcome ErWP pretty well. Indeed, the functionalities are well adapted to the needS of international coordinators and students. Also, one of the main advantage of this tool is that it is free to use. This will be the main difference between EWP and the platforms currently available on the market and this is very attractive to universities. The investment budget of universities is often quite tight when it comes to administration procedures. The direction is much more inclined to invest in communication and recruitment.
This all new EWP platform looks very promising but some questions are still left unanswered; especially the launch date.
The veritable launch of EWP is nothing certain; also because it is a European funded project which can slow the process. That is why the alternatives right now are private tools.
University staff also worries about the complexity of the platform, in its use. Indeed, it will be difficult to implement their own database to the platform; and in general, to the software existent internally. They want to be sure that they will not have to use 2 different tools and that EWP can simply be synchronised.
Another point raised by the international coordinators during the EAIE conference is that EWP has to be used by all universities in order to be useful. Indeed, what happens if the home university manages his partnerships on EWP but its partner, the host university, does not use the platform?
The last point raised during the presentation was the problem of a database. International coordinators highlighted the importance of following up on the past exchanges. This allows them to both measure and track the feedback they receive from students who spent a semester on exchange in a given university partner. In addition, this is highly demanded by current students lookingto go on exchange. They often want to talk to students who had an exchange program experience in a given university to choose their destination and cursus. The fact that, as for now, there is no data base of the previous exchanges is a big weakness of EWP. We hope, that later on, there will be a data base developed with testimonies from past exchange students, as well as a system to track the number of students who went to which university and which program and their feedback.
SO WHAT?
By giving up all administration process and paper work, Erasmus without paper shall contribute to international mobility among students and to the development of education across the world by encouraging cooperation between universities and states.
In addition, studying abroad being facilitated, the number of students studying abroad will most certainly go up with less barriers to mobility and more transparency. As for now, there are quota in the number of students who can take part in exchanges, mainly because international coordinators cannot handle that much work for an unlimited number of students.
Erasmus without paper might be the tool to foster the number of students going on mobility.
One thing that is lacking with EWP, is the possibility for any student to register directly in a university abroad, not as part of a university exchange. This will also be needed to be in line with the promotion of international mobility.
The benefits of going abroad are not to be proven anymore; exchanges, cooperation and the sharing of good practices are essential to understand and live in harmony in our world. International mobility is a mean to better live the globalisation of our world and to make young generations actors of international tolerance.
Although I agree that the launch of Erasmus Without Paper might come rather late, we should stay positive and welcome the initiative. Authorities and governments are aware of the process and its inefficiencies. They are working towards a solution together with its actors to develop a solution.
Personally my wish is that one-day international mobility is made so easy and so accessible that every student can experience it. You think it is a utopia? I don’t.