The cultural change of moving from paper-based workflows to digital formats takes place gradually, and is often approached with skepticism, requiring considerable time for discussion in order to address the concerns of HEIs. Yet, the fact that the next Erasmus+ programme foresees a gradual shift towards fully digital mobility management is gathering momentum as HEIs are increasingly interested and willing to prepare for this shift. The OLA3.0 project results are expected to play a crucial role in streamlining the Erasmus+ administrative workflows, particularly from 2021 onwards. The project will contribute to a major innovation in the European Higher Education Area (and beyond) by radically changing the way HEIs handle the organisation of mobility flows and paving the way towards a harmonious and streamlined mobility management, based on the once-only principle, which implies interconnecting all services into a single online entry point for staff and students (potentially EWP as an entry point for HEIs and the Erasmus+ App as an entry point for students). More concretely, the OLA3.0 project seeks to empower HEIs: - By offering concrete, thoroughly tested software solutions targeted to mobile students and IROs (including faculty and academic coordinators), that are fully compliant with the values and regulations of the Erasmus+ programme; - By developing additional functionalities that allow its extended usage within and beyond the Erasmus+ programme, therefore avoiding fragmentation and offering true efficiency gains by enabling HEIs to fully synchronize their digital workflows for all types of mobility management at their institutions, including for traineeships, global mobilities in various exchange programmes; - By providing crucial know-how with regards to GDPR compliance in student data management; - By offering comprehensive informative material to support HEIs in making strategic decisions about the next steps in the digitalisation processes. Creating streamlined and less time-consuming mechanisms for HEIs to manage all mobility flows is among the key overall deliverables of the project. The final release of the entire set of OLA3.0 functionalities will coincide with the launch of the next Erasmus programme for the period of 2021-2027, enabling universities to consider and opt for OLA. The OLA3.0 will essentially cater for the dire need to make sure no institution is left behind, as the next Erasmus+ programme can be fully digital only under the condition that there is a way for all HEIs to participate (regardless of their financial and in-house IT capacity). Hence, given the diversity of institutions that exchange mobile students and the technical, human and financial resources available, it is essential to have a ready-made and freely available online tool that allows HEIs to be interconnected and therefore participate in the next Erasmus+ programme. The project will be implemented by 11 partners: EUF (coordinating institution), 9 universities (University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), University of Vienna (Austria), University of Marburg (Germany), University of Alcalá (Spain), University of Bergen (Norway), Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University (France), University of Warsaw (Poland) and the Erasmus Student Network, which will account for the student perspective of mobility management. The consortium has a strong institutional commitment and interest to continue efforts in making the online LA a reality for all.
The project had the overall goal of making the shift towards digital workflows for Erasmus+ mobilities easier for all HEIs involved, especially the smaller ones with less to no resources available to afford a commercial solution or develop an in-house one, hence ensuring that no one is left behind. More specifically, the partner's objective was to: - Provide a complete revamp of the preexisting OLA technical platform to improve its stability, security, and fitness to the new Learning Agreement template for digital agreements in the 2021-2027 Erasmus+ Programme. - Extend the functionalities of the OLA platform to encompass other mobility workflows, for example processing Transcripts of Records. - Extend the OLA platform to other forms of mobility, for example, ICM and non-Erasmus in order to prevent HEIs from having to use multiple digital solutions per type of mobility. - Offer up-to-date and in-depth information on GDPR compliance. - Organise dissemination activities and produce training material that could address the demand for information regarding the OLA platform and the larger context of digital management of mobility.
The key reason for applying was the success of the previous OLA project iterations and the fact that the learning-agreement.eu had become the reference implementation of the digital LAs in Erasmus+ programme. The systemic impact and staggering success of the previous OLA projects meant systems which had been designed as a proof of concept for a relatively small user base were being used by the majority of ECHE holders, and, if decisive action had not been taken, they would have risked collapsing under such extreme pressure. Given that at the time of the application there was no clarity on the overarching funding line for the work required by the ESCI, the consortium felt it was important to make available a robust third version of the OLA project to respond to the needs of the HE community. In addition, the specific needs were related to: - Implementation of the new templates of the LAs while allowing the infrastructure to resist a more intensive usage once the digital LAs would become a compulsory requirement. - Implementation of new features and technologies. - Increased support and information provision on implementing digital LAs and switching to digital workflows. - Greater guarantees regarding compliance matters.