Digitising Academic Catalogues for Enhanced Mobility

DACEM aims to address longstanding challenges faced by Erasmus students, dating back to the programme’s inception in 1987. Since its launch, Erasmus has facilitated student and staff mobility, eventually evolving into Erasmus+ in 2014 to enhance higher education quality and foster transnational cooperation. Despite its evolution, Erasmus+ students continue to encounter difficulties accessing timely and accurate information about host institutions’ academic offerings. This lack of transparency affects crucial decisions regarding study courses and recognition of achievements abroad, contributing to lower-than-desired levels of recognition.

The DACEM project seeks to tackle these issues by developing a solution to maintain and provide up-to-date Course Catalogues (CCs) in an accessible, consistent, and interoperable manner. HEIs are mandated to digitise and regularly update their CCs to ensure transparency and accessibility. However, the digitisation process poses technical and cultural challenges, hindering progress towards sustainable and interoperable solutions. DACEM partners have identified persistent issues with CCs, prompting the project’s focus on developing an open-source solution, reference manuals, and a cloud platform. These outcomes aim to support HEIs and students in navigating mobility decisions and learning agreements effectively.

By creating a user-friendly platform that integrates with existing tools like Erasmus Without Paper (EWP), the NORM tool, and the Online Learning Agreement (OLA), DACEM strives to transform the experience for European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and students. The core activities of the project involve extensive mapping of current CCs, analysing user and stakeholder needs, and leveraging new technologies to develop an open-source CC solution and cloud platform. DACEM ensures transparency in course details, bridges accessibility gaps, and facilitates recognition across borders, levelling the playing field for all students, irrespective of their backgrounds or circumstances.