Mobility programmes: approval, change, and recognition of activities

Submission and approval of the Learning Agreement

In the learning agreement you have to indicate the course (or courses) you are planning to attend abroad in substitution to those of your study plan, identifying the correspondence groups. In the Learning Agreement you are able to include all the exams of your study plan which have not been held or passed yet (not only exams of the year in which your experience abroad will take place, but also remaining exams from the previous year or the following year).

The learning agreement is an official contract, therefore, once validated by a professor and approved by your Degree Director, the student has the guarantee of recognition. Therefore, if the student, during the Erasmus exchange,  attends successfully all the courses listed in the Learning Agreement, he/she will have the certainty of recognition of courses listed in the Learning Agreement. On the contrary, if the student does not indicate a course in the Learning Agreement, it will not be recognized upon return (or, in the case where recognition is asked upon  return, its recognition is not guaranteed).

a) The student must first select the type of activity, indicating:

□ "Studies" if he/she intends to take exams or do research for the final dissertation;

□ "Thesis"

□ "Internship" if the possibility to carry out an internship at the host University was already confirmed by both sending and receiving Institutions

b) The student who selected the "Studies" option will see the displayed boxes that allow to insert (as shown above) the correspondence groups. After creating a correspondence you must click on "add group" button to create a new one.

The Learning Agreement must be completed online on AlmaRM (https://almarm.unibo.it)

The student will then log in to the system using the credentials and indicating for each group:

• On the left side “Foreign Activities”: the exams to be held abroad
• On the right side “The activities to be recognized”: the courses of the study plan to be recognized

It is important to create more correspondence groups (with "add group") in order to make clear the correspondence between the exams taken abroad and activities of which the recognition is being requested.

REMARKS FOR COMPLETING THE LEARNING AGREEMENT:

• For each exam of your "Italian" study plan it is possible to make a correspondence with one foreign exam or a set of exams, if the number of credits for each exam offered abroad is lower than for those in the study plan. By contrast, if the courses at the foreign university have a number of credits higher than those in your study plan, you can make a correspondence with more courses of your "Italian" study Plan.

• Example ( 1 ECTS = 1 CFU)

It is not always possible to find a full correspondence regarding the number of credits: in general, the difference between foreign credits (ECTS) and credits to be recognized by the University of Bologna (CFU) must not exceed 2 credits.

Optional courses: you can insert optional credits presented in the study plan (these credits depend on the student's choice) in the Learning Agreement.

Students can insert the optional CFU or indicate a corresponding optional course in the study plan, or if there are no correspondences with elective courses offered by the University of Bologna only indicate the scientific subject sector.  For the free choice credits, it is not mandatory to find a match with elective courses offered by the University of Bologna, but it is possible to indicate with the support of the Degree Director the corresponding scientific subject sector.

Example:

To insert these credits, in the section "Activities to recognize", the student must indicate the number of CFU and select from the list in the box the Scientific Subject Sector (SSD).

N.B. However, we recommend all students to also make the choice of the optional courses of the study plan respecting the deadlines to avoid problems in the event that you do not pass or hold the examination corresponding the optional credits.

In fact, if the optional CFU will be fulfilled successfully during the Erasmus exchange, they will be transcribed directly as optional credits in the Scientific Subject Sector. In the other case, if the optional credits will not be fulfilled successfully in Erasmus, the student upon the return will have the opportunity to complete the elective courses if they have been previously inserted in the study plan (that is why it is important to fill in due time the study plan, even if the optional credits were included in the Learning Agreement).

• Language Exams: Language courses can be inserted only as extracurricular activities.
• Law Exams: Usually you cannot insert Law exams that specifically concern the Italian legislation in the Learning agreement because the exams taken abroad differs from those contained in the study plan, with reference to a different national legislation.

The master’s degree students will have to fulfill the minimum of 15 CFU / ECTS, when they leave for one semester, and 30 ECTS, in case of the full academic year.

If the student wants to attend courses  in a second language (French, German, Spanish or Portuguese) the level of the foreign language must be at least B2.

COMPILATION AND APPROVAL OF THE LEARNING AGREEMENT:

1. Once the Learning Agreement is completed, the student can save it in Safe Mode to be able to change it later; alternatively, by clicking on "present the Learning Agreement", you perform the final saving and send the Learning Agreement to the professor in charge of the agreement (by clicking on "withdraw", you will lose all changes).
2. The professor in charge of the agreement can validate it for the subsequent official approval by the Degree Programme Director or send it back to the student for the changes .

After the  approval made by the professor in charge of the agreement, the Degree Programme Director  will sign the document and  it will be uploaded on Almarm. The student will be able to upload the  mobility agreement duly signed

Modify the Learning Agreeement

It often happens that the students, arriving at the host University are forced to modify the Learning Agreement for the reasons of timetable conflicts, changes of the educational offer or simply because you have found a most interesting course

In these cases you can change your Learning Agreement only once per semester, following the above  approval process.

The Learning Agreement Changes can be requested within 5 weeks from the start of the courses at the host university.

It is therefore necessary:

- To present the changes on AlmaRM;

- The Degree Programme Director is committed to communicating the approval (or disapproval) of the Learning Agreement modifications within two weeks after the student’s submission of the request;

- The office will upload the new Learning Agreement on AlmaRM for the host university to sign it.

NOTE: Changes to the Learning Agreement should be considered as exceptional and, basically, there is only one change possible for each exchange semester. This means that the two changes are, as a general rule, allowed only for longer periods of exchange.

Recognition of the activities carried abroad

At the end of the exchange period, the student must obtain the Transcript of Records certifying the exams carried out and the related grades issued by the host university. The original document must be delivered to the International Relations Office, while a scanned copy must be uploaded to AlmaRM.

Present the request for recognition via ALMARM.

NOTE: You will be able to present  the request of recognition only if the learning agreement (duly signed) and the certificate of attendance were correctly uploaded to Almarm.

The system will automatically load the activities specified in the Learning Agreement, therefore the student will have to indicate whether he/she passed the activities at the host institution (indicating the grade obtained abroad, and possibly - but not mandatory - the exam date) and whether he/she intends to apply for recognition of the corresponding activities in the Italian study plan.

After submitting the application for recognition:

- The professor in charge of the agreement must validate (or reject) the request and insert the converted grades out of thirty

- The Commission of Student Practices must approve the request and  the student's career will be updated.

The conversion of  grades will be made through the ECTS system. More info at: http://www.unibo.it/it/didattica/iscrizioni-trasferimenti-e-laurea/il-sistema-universitario/ects-label/la-scala-ects

Contacts:

International Relations Office

Università di Bologna – Campus Rimini

Via Cattaneo, 17 

47921 Rimini

Tel: (+39) 0541 4 34 101 

e-mail: campusrimini.relint@unibo.it

Opening hours:

Mon-Tue-Wed-Fri: from 9:00 to 11:15 

Tue-Thu: from 14:30 to 15:30