MobiAbility: A European standard on support measures in the EHEA for international students with disabilities. Erasmus Project

Project Title

MobiAbility: A European standard on support measures in the EHEA for international students with disabilities.

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Disabilities – special needs; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

Participation of people with special needs in the field of international mobility, and in particular at university level is one of the areas with a lowest participation ratio. Some reasons could be the lack of specific information on the support measures offered by the host university, as well as no personalized follow-up of cases where the stay was not completed or was unsatisfactory. In an effort to solve these problems, the Mobiability project has developed two resources. The project consortium consists of seven institutions (four universities and three social entities) from four European countries.
These resources are:
1)A “Standard of support measures for Erasmus + students with special needs”. That is a pan-European standard of reasonable measures and adjustments in the university academic field of international mobility for students with disabilities and / or difficulties in learning. It has been prepared based on the combination of three types of studies: a) a legal one, with a legal analysis of the national regulations regarding disability in the field of higher education in 21 states (together they represent more than 95% of the Erasmus + students – in general – and 98% with disabilities), b) another empirical, consisting in the collection, through a detailed and exhaustive online survey, of the measures, reasonable adjustments and support services that European universities are currently offering to international students in terms of attention to diversity (N = 31); and a survey of experts, which has complemented the information from previous studies. Thus, on this triple basis, 213 minimum measures and 29 recommendations for supporting students with special educational needs are proposed, structured by areas of application (access and admission, physical accessibility, technological and information accessibility, teaching-learning process, etc. ) promotion of participation, scholarships and grants, internal processes of support services, and evaluation of the mobility program by students) and by type of disability (physical and organic, psychosocial, visual, auditory, deafblindness, intellectual and learning difficulties). The Standard has been evaluated by a focus group and is published in open and accessible format (https://www.um.es/mobiability/es/resultados/estandar-medidas-apoyo/). The Standard is expected to become a reference for universities, staff involved in the Erasmus + programme and associations and students with special needs, among other groups.

2) The second result of the project is the “MobiAbility web platform” (www.mobiability.eu) located on the servers of the University of Murcia (UMU). This platform contains specific information on the disability support measures offered by the universities registered in the system. In addition, tools are offered to make easy to students with special needs the participation in mobility programmes. In particular, the platform provides the following tools: a) university search engine best suited to the academic and special needs of the students; b) communication protocol between the interlocutors (universities and students) for the acceptance of the student at the host university with the commitment to meet their special needs; c) facilitate the elaboration of a detailed memorandum of the resources and actions to be activated to meet the needs of the student; and d) an evaluation procedure by the students of their experience and / or, where necessary, the detection of incidences. The design of the platform was evaluated by a representative focus group of the final recipients. It has been programmed with MySQL databases in SQL language, JavaScript script language and PHP programming language, for viewing in HTML and CCS. On the other hand, the platform has been audited and reaches AA level accessibility standards (WCAG 2.0), and complies with the European directive on personal data protection. The first year of operation will be a pilot Project with users and real cases with the aim of testing the platform before opening it to the public. It is expected that it can be a reference portal for students with special needs and for the staff of the universities involved.
In short, it is expected that these two tools serve to homogenize the European procedures and standards of attention to university students who perform academic mobility. And that this, in turn, supposes an increase in the participation of this group in the Erasmus + Programme.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 144013 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE MURCIA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITATEA ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA DIN IASI
• Fundacion Universia
• Masarykova univerzita
• Comité de Representantes de Personas con Discapacidad y sus Familias de la Región de Murcia
• POLITECHNIKA LUBELSKA
• FUNDACION ONCE PARA LA COOPERACIONE INCLUSION SOCIAL DE PERSONAS CONDISCAPACIDAD