Online administrative procedures in European policy documents
The different digitalisation initiatives in this knowledge base are part of an effort to modernise European Higher Education by digitalising processes. At the European level these efforts are grouped under the European Student Card Initiative aiming to improve authentication and registration for students who aim to study abroad. The European Student Card Initiative is one of the core initiatives in the vision to create a European Education Area by 2025.
The European Student Card Initiative and its underlying projects are mentioned in several key European policy documents that came out during the last couple of years:
- Communication about the European Education Area, (September 2020) see pp. 21-22;
- Communication about the Digital Education Action Plan (September 2020), see p. 17;
- Communication about the renewed EU agenda for higher education (May 2017), see p. 11;
It goes without saying that Higher Education Institutions throughout Europe are expected to join these efforts and to support the digitalisation processes.
Digital management of student mobility in the new Erasmus Programme
Digitalisation of the administrative procedures is one of the important priorities of the new Erasmus Programme.
The programme guide makes clear that all HEI participating in Erasmus Mobilities should implement the digital:
As announced in 2019 and confirmed with the new Erasmus Charter for Higher Education (ECHE) 2021-2027 and its associated implementation guidelines, accredited higher education institutions commit to implement digital management of their student mobility in line with the standards of the European Student Card Initiative. In line with the objectives of the European Student Card Initiative, the Erasmus Without Paper (EWP) Network ensures that any higher education institution can connect to the network and seamlessly share data with their partners to facilitate digital Erasmus+ administrative processes.
Higher Education Institutions are expected to be connected to the EWP Network and to start exchanging digital Erasmus+ agreements (Online Learning Agreements and Inter Institutional Agreements) with their partners through the network from June 2021 onward. In order to achieve a fully digital management of Erasmus+ student mobility, all higher education institutions need to be connected as soon as possible. In order to make sure that no one is left behind, the Commission will consider the 2021/2022 academic year as a transitional year. This means that at the very latest before the start of the academic year 2022/2023, all higher education institutions participating in the Erasmus+ programme must be connected to the EWP Network. Alternatively, they may lose their accreditation for the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education.
Secure identification and authentication
In order to ensure that digital management of student mobility is efficient and secure, it is paramount that the system can uniquely identify students and authenticate its users. To solve this, the MyAcademicID project has created the European Student Identifier (ESI) and embedded it in the eduGAIN infrastructure and the student-facing components of Erasmus Without Paper. This allows students to use their home university credentials when interacting with, for example, the Erasmus+ App and the Online Learning Agreement. It also allows their home institution to issue the ESI and include it in the exchange of relevant mobility data to uniquely identify the student.
All higher education institutions are strongly encouraged to join their National Research and Education Network (NREN) as soon as possible to allow their students to benefit from using their home university credentials and their ESI to identify themselves.
The Commission is also working together with project partners involved in the initiative to find an alternative solution for those higher education institutions that are not able to join a NREN. While most universities are already represented in eduGAIN through their NRENs, some smaller higher education institutions in particular may not be able to connect to the NREN.
Two alternative solutions are already provided to reply to the needs of their students. They can either use their national eID or their Google account to access services. The objective is to replace the Google authentication as soon as possible with a more secure and sustainable alternative solution. The Commission and project partners will discuss this specific topic during the next meeting with the Digital Officers on 22 February.