Field Trial Newsletter 3/5

For internal and external use

The Third EMREX Newsletter is out!

One and a half year into the project, EMREX is at its halfway point, and a lot of progress has been made in exploring new ways to make the credit transfer and recognition easier via technological development and innovation, stakeholder engagement and awareness-raising.

A federated solution that allows interoperability and information sharing between different student record management systems across Europe has been produced by the EMREX team, including a high degree of flexibility in its local implementation. A field trial to test the usability of the solution with student and administrators from higher education institutions from porject countries began in the late spring 2016 and will go on until July 2017. Several students from Sweden, Norway and Finland have succesfully retrieved their student information fro their host institutions involved in the project. Italy joined the trial after the summer and is now anxiously waiting feedback from its first users, whilst Denmark will join the trial later this year.

In parallel, the project has been investigating the role and impact of the new EMREX solution in student exchange, compiling feedback from former exchange students about their experiences with and expectations for recognition process across Europe. Another survey is conducted among EMREX users to understand better the end users and their needs. This will allow the EMREX team to build towards producing viable and scalable solutions for more efficient and enhanced credit transfer and recognition

EMREX has attracted significant attention and various stakeholders in Europe and beyond have already expressed their interest in EMREX solution. EMREX has been, and will continue to be, present at many external events, including conferences, seminars, and workshops involving a range of stakeholders from various positions. The latest presentation, including our new video, was given at EAIE conference in Liverpool, taking lace from 13th to the 16th of september 2016. A seminar and stakeholder forum will be organized in Helsinki, Finland on 31.1-2.2.2017. Finally, interested stakeholders can also keep up with project activities and related news by following our website at emrex.eu

With a fruitful one and a half year gone by the project team is excited to continue working towards the project’s objectives over the following 18 months – and looking forward to new coorperation opportunities.

Your EMREX team

Field trial: Newsletter 2/5

For internal and external use

Field Trial is rolling on!!
– do you want to be a forerunner in the digitalization of the transfer of study record?

Field trial

EMREX has entered the Field Trial tage in which the solution for electronic transfer of study records is tested by students. As f March 2016 students in Norway and Sweden have been testing the model between the two countries and Finland has recently joined the field trial with Finnish students fetching their study records first from Sweden. Italy is expected to join in a couple of weeks and Denmark after the summer.

The spring term is ending and students are currently pouring into their home institutions after finishing their studies abroad. This provides an excellent opportunity for you to take part in the EMREX field Trial and test the tool at your home institution. Feedback from users – students, administrators and coordinators – is key to identify key strenghts and areas for development of the EMREX solution. The more logins we get from students, the better the EMREX model will be!

We offer you an opportunity to have your say about the electronic transfer of study records and to be the forerunner in the digitalization of the recognition process in Europe – and beyond. If you are interested in participating in the field trial, please contact your national contact person:

• Anders Bøgebjerg Hansen (abh@ufm.dk), Denmark
• Jonna Korhonen (jonna.korhonen@csc.fi), Finland
• Stefano Russo (strusso@kion.it), Italy
• Agnethe Sidselrud (agnethe.sidselrud@fsat.no), Norway
• Pamela Engström (pamela.engstrom@gu.se), Sweden

More information about the Field Trial can be found at emrex.eu

Survey ongoing about the recognition process

To gauge the effectiveness and value of EMREX for the recognition process, an online survey is currently being undertaken. The survey asks about the recognition process and how the transfer of credits taken abroad goes after returning to the institution. The results will help to pin down whether or not students are satisfied with their recognition process and to explore potential benefits of digitalization of the process.

The survey has been sent to all exchange students in participating EMREX-countries and is open until early 2017. the first peek into the preliminary results reveals that 53% of the survey respondents did not get their transcript of records before leaving the host institution and a clear majority would be willing to use the EMREX solution if it was available to ease and speed up the process. A final report on the survey will be available at the end of the project in 2017.

Should you not be able to participate in testing the EMREX solution, you can nevertheless still contribute to the project and help us to collect feedback and experiences of your students who have studied abroad regarding their recognition process. We invite you to spread the link to the survey widely at your institutions via different channels (website, tiwtter, email, facebook, etc.).

The survey is hosted on a server of the University of Warsaw and can be accessed via the following link: https://ankieter.mimuw.edu.pl/en/surveys/81/ . If you wish, you can rename the link.

The Word version of the questionnare is available here: long survey questionnaire.docx

If you have any questions about the survey please contact:
Tomasz Zając (t.zajac@uw.edu.pl), Poland

Information material and support

The EMREX-project is providing information material to participating institutions. Most material is found at emrex.eu, for more specific and/or technical material, please contact the project leader for IT development Geir Magne Vangen (g.m.vangen@fsat.no) or the project manager Mats Lindstedt (mats.lindstedt@csc.fi).

During the Field Trial a generic support address is provided: emrex-support@77.104.135.218