Join your national research and education identity federation and eduGAIN! This was a message that around 800 European Higher Education Institution (HEI) representatives heard during the European Commission’s ‘Erasmus Going Digital’ online workshop on 5 November 2020.
For the past two years, GÉANT and partners have been working with key players in the Erasmus Student Card Initiative in the context of the MyAcademicID project. This will pave the way to digitise the student mobility process within the Erasmus+ programme.
Digitising the Erasmus programme is a goal of DG EAC, the EC’s Directorate General for Education and Culture. The explicit message from DG EAC encouraging HEIs to ensure they are members of their national federations and eduGAIN was a welcome endorsement of the federated identity management approach that has been championed by the GÉANT community for many years. During the webinar, Licia Florio, Senior Trust & Identity Manager at GÉANT, explained how HEIs can join and benefit from federation and eduGAIN participation.
Supporting students in the Erasmus programme is a priority for national research and education network (NREN) organisations and gives them the opportunity to continue expanding the reach of federated access and eduGAIN services. NRENs and GÉANT are also working to support students and institutions that are not yet participating in these federations.
Thanks to the work of the MyAcademicID project, students will be able to access mobility-related services using either their academic or government digital identity (such as eIDAS). This will allow a greater number of students to participate in Erasmus+. One of the first Erasmus services that is making use of federated access as a result of these developments is the new Online Learning Agreement platform, which was launched earlier in November.
Further information
The November 2020 ‘Erasmus going digital’ webinar was organised by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, co-funded by the EC’s Erasmus+ programme. It is expected that a video of the event will be added to this site at a later date.
