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Higher education student and staff mobility project
Start date: Jun 1, 2014, End date: Sep 30, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The IT University of Copenhagen does not, like many other universities, have an International Office. The role of an international office and all tasks included is held within the department of the Student Affairs and Programs (SAP), as a ‘one-person-office’ by the international coordinator. The daily guidance of students wanting to know more about going abroad is mainly maintained by the Student Guidance and Career Office. Besides that, a newly established thorough online Study Guide is designed so students in various programs can see what destinations are relevant for their specific area of study. In addition to putting information on the digital platform, ITU has decided to build up a physical ‘library’ of materials from partner institutions - and surprisingly, these hardcopy publications are popular with the ITU students. It’s also part of the strategy to be more physically visible to students. At the beginning of each semester, the international coordinator together with the Student Guidance and Career Office invite all students to a ‘study abroad’ event. This event includes a ‘fair’, where partner universities are represented by students who actually went there. A set up of the hardcopy publications, posters, postcards, country flags, and university merchandise, makes the event visually accessible because the event takes place in the atrium of ITU - an open space which is visible from all floors of the building. There are two yearly deadlines for applying to go abroad, and the ‘fair’ is always held two weeks prior to the deadline. In line with being more physically accessible, the international coordinator is present in the Atrium one hour every day after the fair, up until the application deadline to make it easier for students to stop by with questions. Once a student has applied for and been approved and nominated for a seat with a partner university, the student is guided directly by the international coordinator. Weekly, ‘Open Office’ sessions are held, and all the nominated students, can come by with their questions - there is a wide spread of questions from students, and quite often the students come by mostly to be confirmed in the steps they are already taking in their process of going abroad. In the current project we have sent our 9 student mobilities and receiving 9 student mobilities, including sending out 1 staff teaching. At the ITU numbers of outgoing student mobilities (both including ERASMUS+ and Bilateral students) are not high, but we do keep making the numbers grow. Over the past years ITU have seen an increase in outgoing SAEX (Study Abroad and Exchange) students 2012 (40), 2013 (79), 2014 (85) and 2015 (110). When counting heads it might not be huge numbers, but it is still an increase. ITU operates with both ERASMUS+ Exchange, Bilateral Exchange and Study Abroad tuition fee based agreements. Our main focus is to keep our number of outgoing students to increase which we will do by continuing to host information meetings, using social media, inhouse online platforms with presentations of our partners, and not least to keep inviting students who have been abroad to meet with interested students so they can get first-hand information directly. The EU wants to ensure that European funding has a direct impact upon academic excellence (Erasmus What's in it for higher education p. 9), and approaches and strategies at ITU have led to: 1 - an increase in outgoing students 2 - increase in destination countries from 2013 3 - closer working partnership with faculty members and heads of programs, and 4 - better analysis of partners, thereby ensuring a quality assurance for students in academic excellence. For our students participating in exchange we see that the higest scores of questions of section 9.1 Learning Outcomes lie within improving problem solving skills, planning and carrying out own learning and that they got a better knowledge of their strength and weaknesses.The ERASMUS+ mobility period has thus improved their employability, given that these skills are some of the skills saught for by employers: From the Erasmus Impact Study 2014 (European Comission) we learn that a stay abroad strengthen the personal development and that employers appreciate these outlined competences: Openess, Curiosity, Problem Solving, Self confidence and Tolerance. By being a part of the ERASMUS+ program and working on securing our students global competences, we hope to be a part of a better connection between Society, Education and to facilitate our students way into the Labour Market.

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