On the 26th of October 2017, the University of Luxembourg hosted a conference on the digitisation of the Erasmus+ mobility programme. 125 participants from 25 European countries, representing over 100 Higher Education Institutions, have attended the conference and discovered a new tool supported by the European Commission: the Online Learning Agreement (OLA).
For the 30th anniversary of the Erasmus+ programme, the European University Foundation, the Erasmus Student Network and a number of European universities, including the University of Luxembourg, have developed the OLA to tackle the bureaucracy (as described in the famous “Auberge Espagnole” movie) of more than 280,000 Erasmus students every year: students using the new solution will prepare and receive documentation through an online platform and avoid the administrative jungle that tends to characterise paper-based administration at universities across Europe.
The project is of strategic importance for the future development of the Erasmus+ programme, since European and national policy-makers aim at increasing the number of beneficiaries of the programme. It is therefore expected that the administrative burden on Higher Education Institutions will increase in the foreseeable future, making such digitisation projects a priority. The University of Luxembourg is known for having implemented mandatory student mobility; hence digitisation projects in this field can have a substantial impact on improving the quality of mobility and the work of all staff involved.
This innovative tool, made in Luxembourg, will be further developed until 2019 and will be made available for free to the 5000 higher education institutions participating in the Erasmus+ programme.
Watch the conference here and check out the Online Learning Agreement.