Apprenticeship agreements established for this semester as well as apprenticeship agreements for internships are now available via the old OLA platform. The objective of the project is to enable students to prepare their learning agreements under an online system that will allow them to contact the detachment and hospitality coordinators of higher education institutions to finalize, approve and sign the document online. This process therefore transfers a paper workflow, which depends on timely mailings for signature purposes, into an online system that allows students to save a lot of time in preparing for their studies abroad and to create an increased degree of flexibility and efficiency in revising the learning agreement. The online software will also allow higher education institutions to integrate learning agreement management processes to improve the efficiency of the licensing and management process, giving staff time to work on other activities in international relations or improve the quality of credit mobility. The OLS was designed to help Erasmus students improve their knowledge of the language in which they will study before and during their stay abroad, in order to ensure a better quality of learning mobility. As part of the credit mobility organization, students and university staff must enter into trilateral learning agreements that form the basis for the recognition of university qualifications acquired abroad. As indicated by the PRIME survey conducted by the Erasmus 2010-2011 student network, apprenticeship agreements are a cornerstone and at the same time constitute a major obstacle to the proper organisation of credit mobility. Indeed, the interlocutors are not clearly defined, the information necessary to implement the agreements is rarely available online and the possibility for students to change their apprenticeship agreement after their arrival in the receiving higher education institutions is 75%. In the same survey, some national LLP agencies proposed to create an online tool for the preparation, approval and revision of learning agreements in an online environment, and this is what this project intends to do.
In a study conducted in late 2019-early 2020, more than 90% of students said they would recommend OLA to their peers. In addition, 93% of IRO believe that all apprenticeship agreements should be concluded online through a user-friendly tool. In recent years, we have seen how digital learning agreements can significantly reduce the administrative burden and provide students with a quality mobility experience. In the past, the complexity of red tape has resulted in learning agreements not always being concluded before departure, as well as problems with ECTS recognition after students return home. A stronger, safer, more transparent and more flexible OLA will ensure that the same will happen in the years to come.