INSTRUCTIONS
The Erasmus Commission consists of three professors: Dr. Roberta Mineo, the Commission coordinator, who deals with the study plans of Unimore students spending one or two semesters abroad; Prof. Rita Bertozzi, responsible for the validation of activities/courses of Unimore students upon their return, and Dr. Annalisa Sezzi, who manages the study plans of incoming students. They are joined by Dr. Cinzia Braglia for issues concerning internships for Primary Teacher Education students and Dr. Varga for all other internships.
Any academic matter (courses, exams, internships, labs, grades, etc.) must be discussed with one of the Commission members before departure, during the period abroad, and upon return to Unimore. Except in specific cases mentioned below, the Commission and NOT the student, will get in touch with other Department professors for Erasmus-related issues. The Student Mobility Office handles all administrative and bureaucratic aspects of the programme, supports the Commission and the students by mediating with partner universities' administration offices, when necessary.
ACCEPTANCE AND REQUIREMENTS
Upon receiving the email with the assignment of the location and scholarship, the student must immediately accept it and follow the instructions of the mobility office included in the same email. If the partner university also requests the registration and submission of a Learning Agreement, the student must send the required documents to the host university within the deadlines. At this stage, if the partner institution requires a Learning Agreement, the student can include the courses and activities initially identified as relevant to the choice of the host university. It is NOT necessary to contact Dr. Mineo before sending the documents (registration, learning agreement, etc.) that are required by the partner's mobility office for the student's enrollment process and are considered NON-BINDING for the subsequent Transcript of Records/Learning Agreement for recognition purposes upon return.
In May/June, a student orientation session on Erasmus procedures will be organized by the DESU; the invitation will be sent via email and published on the DESU website: those unable to attend will find a video of the meeting on the mobility page.
Only after participating in the meeting (an email invitation will be sent to all scholarship winners), the student can start negotiating and approving activities (courses, internship, thesis, seminars) with the DESU Erasmus Commission.
OUTGOING STUDENTS
Outgoing students must complete their study plan for the foreign institutions together with Dr. Mineo. These are the forms to be filled in and approved by Dr. Mineo:
- Course Proposal
- “Impegno al Riconoscimento” - Commitment to Credits Recognition
- Learning Agreement (or study plan)
All the documents are available on the Department's website under the section Internationalization and on the Erasmus DESU Facebook community.
- Students must draft, using the file available on the DESU website, a proposal for the courses they intend to take at the partner university (including internships, seminars, etc.), along with the course syllabus and bibliographies. This information can be found on the university websites and/or by contacting local Erasmus coordinators. The proposal must also include a list of all exams at Unimore that are still pending at the time of departure, along with indications of possible course equivalences between foreign courses and Unimore courses. Additionally, students must provide a list of workshops scheduled at Unimore that they will be unable to attend due to the mobility (see workshops section). The proposal should be sent to roberta.mineo@unimore.it. Dr. Mineo will review the proposal and the syllabus to verify which courses will be eligible for credit recognition.
It is not possible to request recognition of a sociology course for a pedagogy course, or a philosophy course for a psychology one, etc. The foreign course bibliography will be taken into account, not only its denomination.
- Once the proposal has been approved, the student must complete the file called “Impegno” with the identified courses/activities and their corresponding Unimore ones, in two separate tables. This document must be submitted to Dr. Mineo for approval. Before this, the file should be saved as follows: "Impegno student firstname and lastname." This document represents the agreed terms between Unimore and the student for the recognition of academic achievements during Erasmus mobility. The document can be edited with a new proposal submission via email and subsequent approval of the requested changes. For validation purposes upon return, the last approved version of the document will be effective.
If the agreed validation of a course includes its corresponding workshop, the document’s name must include the entry "Workshop included.". If not, it will be considered excluded, even in case of wrong calculation of credits.
- The Learning Agreement (LA) is a document often requested by partner universities during the application process, before the study plan has been formally finalized (i.e., before the “Impegno” document has been submitted). It can therefore be completed by the student and signed by Dr. Mineo without a thorough analysis of course content. The Learning Agreement is not binding for Unimore in terms of the academic validation. It can also be modified, following the same procedure of the proposal and “Impegno” documents. Note: The Learning Agreement alone cannot justify changes for validation purposes upon return.
UPON RETURNING TO ITALY
Upon returning to Italy, students must contact Professor Bertozzi (rita.bertozzi@unimore.it) for the validation procedure of the courses/internships taken abroad. They must provide the last approved “Impegno” document, the transcript of records, and the conversion form to ECTS of the host university (if not already included in the transcript of records).
The Commission drafts the validation resolution ONLY if all documents are correctly submitted; the student will find the approved resolution in the public section of the website: http://ar.des.unimore.it/DelibereConvalida/ within 2 months of documents submission.
In any case, the validation will be available on Esse3 in time for graduation. The referent of this procedure is the Student office.
VALIDATION SYSTEM
There is no exact equivalence between Unimore courses and similar courses in other universities. To reach the required CFU (University Credits) for a Unimore course, it may be necessary to combine two or more courses from the partner university (e.g., foreign course A of 3 CFU + foreign course B of 5 CFU = Unimore course of 8 CFU). However, equivalence between courses of "different weights" is also accepted. For example, a 7 CFU course taken abroad can be considered equivalent to an 8 CFU Unimore course; or a 9 CFU course taken abroad can be validated as an 8 CFU Unimore course.
The validation of activities completed abroad follows the criterion of maximizing the value of internationalization. There will be a tendency to prioritize and consequently validate foreign courses, so that the student's Diploma Supplement, at the time of graduation, reflects the CFU obtained during the mobility.
This so-called "package" system cannot be applied in cases of clear asymmetries between foreign courses and Unimore courses. For example, a 4 CFU course taken abroad cannot be validated as a 12 CFU Unimore course. In such cases, the missing CFU for the Unimore course can be obtained by agreeing with the Unimore course professor on an additional exam/interview to obtain the number of CFU indicated in the validation document prepared with Prof. Bertozzi (see the next paragraph). Upon completing the supplementary exam, the instructor must record the total number of CFU for the Unimore course on Esse3, and the grade will be determined by the combination of the grades earned abroad and in Italy. Ultimately, in the Diploma Supplement, the student will NOT find the CFU earned abroad for that course, but only the CFU for the Unimore course.
CFU integration (with the related exam and "loss" of international CFU) can also occur if, upon returning from the Erasmus period, the student has not adhered to the study plan previously agreed.
INTERNSHIP ABROAD – EXCLUDING PRIMARY TEACHER EDUCATION STUDENTS
Students willing to validate an internship activity abroad must follow the procedures outlined in the Erasmus+ Outgoing Students - Internship document.
INTERNSHIP ABROAD - PRIMARY TEACHER EDUCATION STUDENTS
As of now, students in the new order system (“nuovo ordinamento”) of the degree programme in Primary Teacher Education cannot undertake internships abroad. However, some internship hours may be recognized as elective activities or workshops. Therefore, if any Primary Teacher Education student is interested in an experience in a foreign school, they can contact Dr. Braglia (cinzia.braglia@unimore.it) to verify possible validations. These activities must be included in the “Impegno” and Learning Agreement, confirmed and approved by Dr. Mineo. If the mobility gives the student the opportunity to take a scheduled internship in Italy, the situation must be pointed out IN ADVANCE to Dr. Braglia.
ERASMUS TRAINEESHIP
The validation procedures of traineeship are the same as those indicated in the Erasmus+ Outgoing Students - Internship document for DESU students.
WORKSHOPS – PRIMARY TEACHER EDUCATION STUDENTS ONLY
If, during their mobility, students become aware of seminars, workshops, and other educational activities that could be considered comparable to the workshops held at Unimore during their absence, they can ask the Erasmus Commission to integrate their LA with these activities. This also applies to ENGLISH WORKSHOPS. The activity to be validated as a workshop must be approved following the same procedure of any other course (thus included in the “Impegno” document).
For those departing in the fifth year and unable to attend the English Workshop 5, if both the course and the exam at the partner institution are in English, they can contact Dr. Sezzi upon their return to have the workshop validated (as long as the prerequisites are verified). The student should NOT independently contact any Unimore professors to arrange the recognition of activities.
If the student does not find a replacement for the mandatory workshops, they must make up for the missed workshops according to the methods/schedule provided by the Degree Programme (in exceptional cases of two consecutive mobility periods, the student must contact Prof. Tiziana Altiero, responsible person for the PTE workshops). The validation of the course, whose workshop must be completed in Italy upon return, will be suspended until the above-mentioned workshop is completed.
ENGLISH FINAL TEST (PFI) - PRIMARY TEACHER EDUCATION STUDENTS
If an English course at the partner university is requested to be validated as the English final test, the exam taken abroad must be at B2 level and explicitly cover the four language skills (speaking, writing, reading, listening). If the scores for each skill are not specified but only an overall score is provided, that score will be considered valid for all four skills. If the foreign course assessment results only in a pass, the student has the option to accept a passing grade in all four skills and consider the PFI completed, or to take the PFI at Unimore to assess the actual level of English in the four skills.
ELECTIVE ACTIVITIES – ALL STUDENTS
Only the activities included and approved in the “Impegno” document will be validated as elective activities/optional courses, thus deducted from the total number of elective/optional CFU required by the student's Degree Programme. The student is responsible for ensuring that everything they want to be validated and/or transcribed in the Diploma Supplement (the European version of the Degree Certificate) is included in the approved “Impegno” document.