A greek island with mediteranean flair, antique monuments, olive trees, a tavern, beaches and the sea – this is a short description of the location in which the Congress of the Organisation EUNIS (European University Information Systems) took place. The chosen theme was an omnipresent and challenging one: “A new Era of Digital Transformation: challenges in higher education”. The island, called EUNIS island, was of course a virtual one.
On June the 10th, PIM project members walked on digital sand paths to a two-dimensional tavern to receive, together with co-authors from the HS Harz, TU Munich, HISinOne, SfH, DUO Netherlands, the EUNIS Elite Award. This recognition was granted to the paper Progress on Digitization of Higher Education Processes towards Standards EU & DE, submitted in the subtrack “Interoperability across the EU”. Here, the 8 authors draw an overview of manifold and partially heterogeneous developments in the digitization of the higher education area. Various initiatives and projects are mapped on the Student Journey and furthermore evaluated against national and european standards for authentication (eID, eIDAS) and data formats (ELMO). PIM represents the mobility phase and presents itself as a real-life case for interoperability elements such as the interfaces to SIS or the combination ELMO-EDCI in a digital recognition workflow.
Further participants to the congress slot Interoperability in the EU were representatives of the EDSSI-Project and of the EMREX network, whose presentations announced optimistic future developments. The EWP and the EMREX-registries will unite and EMREX will extend the use cases in scope. Such perspectives can be interpreted as important steps towards more integration and cooperation in the European or even global higher education digitization. Isolated, “island-like” solutions are only suitable as imaginary framing for a virtual event meant for intensive knowledge exchange.
