On January 15th, 2025, the European Higher Education Interoperability Framework (EHEI) was launched, centered on the development of digital applications that allow for the seamless communication and information exchange amongst universities, stemming from the idea for the creation of European Universities. This framework is the result of a number of studies that were drawn up in the course of the European Digital Education Hub working group on higher education interoperability, under the auspices of the EU. In the respective repository, two strategic documents emphasize the specific characteristics and advantages of the information system developed by AUTh.
This achievement profoundly highlights the opportunities for the further exploitation of the system, as well as its’ possible future establishment as a standard prototype for the digitalization of a set of educational procedures, such as course application, student registration, participation in lectures, grading, certificate issuing and the inclusion of the digital student card on a European level.
More specifically:
The Virtual University Registrar System (VURS) constitutes a central university secretariat information and management system for students and staff alike. It fully supports all the functionalities necessary for monitoring mobilities, as well as the issuing and recognition of certificates (including ECTS and micro-credentials). It is part of the EPICUR Inter-University Campus, developed by AUTh during its participation in the EPICUR, the European University Alliance. It serves as a central gate to support flexible digital, physical and hybrid mobility formats for all students and staff members of the 9 partner universities. VURS principally includes:
- Course Catalogue: The full list of courses offered to EPICUR students
- Candidate application: An application for managing the admission process for students who wish to follow an EPICUR course
- Student application: An application for students enrolled in an EPICUR course
- Secretariat application: An application for the administrative staff that monitors the learning pathways, course offerings and mobilities of EPICUR
- Teacher application: An application for the teaching staff that offers courses in EPICUR
- Control panel: Part of the secretariat application, aimed at dealing with the rights and specific roles of the rest of the users
- VURS API Server: The central service responsible for supporting the interoperability amongst all the above applications, but also with external systems.
