Evaluating the ‘Mobility Mapping Tool’

From 3 to 4 May, 30 universities participating in the pilot of the MAUNIMO project – Mapping University Mobility of Staff and Students – gathered at the University of Trento, Italy, to discuss the testing of the Mobility Mapping Tool (MMT), a self-evaluation tool designed by EUA and its project partners.

Constructed as a survey that can be filled out by a wide range of actors in the institution (students, academic staff, administrative staff, etc.), the MMT intends to assist universities in interrogating perceptions and developing priorities and knowledge of student and staff mobility. Promoting a dynamic definition of mobility that includes students, staff, young researchers, doctoral candidates, etc., the MMT ultimately attempts to help universities raise awareness for mobility policies and activities across the institution, and take discussions on mobility beyond the international office.
The 30 universities participating in the evaluation seminar in Trento reported on their personal experiences in testing the Mobility Mapping Tool and specific approaches they took to adapt it to their own contexts, needs and resources. Some institutions received feedback from as many as 160 individuals in the university on the questionnaire, whereas others took a more targeted approach, disseminating it only to certain departments or certain representative individuals. In general, though there was a variety of criticism and feedback on how to improve the MMT, almost all institutions agreed that the MMT helped to raise awareness of the importance and complexity of mobility. Some institutions even stated that they would use the process to help revise their internationalisation strategies.
Over the next months, the Mobility Mapping Tool will be revised and re-developed according to the feedback of the pilot universities so it can be made available to a wider university audience. Key policy messages on how universities are presently strategising around mobility will be summarised in a project publication and promoted at a final conference at the University of Oslo, Norway, from 4 to 5 September. Registration for this event will be launched at the end of May (and will be announced in the EUA newsletter). For more information about MAUNIMO, which is co-funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission, visit the project website.