Moving towards a unified European Higher Education Area

September 2, 2011: Official launch of nine eParticipation University portals – 2nd project Press Release
The 2nd press release of MyUniversity project was circulated today to all European media, stakeholders and interested parties. The press release announces the official launch of nine eParticipation University portals and presents the relevant urls in the English language. Read the 2nd MyUniversity Press Release in English.
Nine eParticipation portals for universities are launched today in order to offer to university members and to local, national and EU stakeholders in the higher education system an opportunity to collaborate within the decision – making processes that address several of the Bologna action lines. The nine end-user universities and the website address of their eParticipation portals are:
International Business School Bulgaria: www.e-myUniversity.eu/ibsedu
University of National and World Economy (Bulgaria): www.e-myUniversity.eu/unwe
University of Vilnius (Lithuania): www.e-myUniversity.eu/vu
University of Presov in Presov (Slovakia): www.e-myUniversity.eu/unipo
Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (Slovakia): www.e-myUniversity.eu/stuba
Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (Slovakia): www.e-myUniversity.eu/uniag
Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain): www.e-myUniversity.eu/urjc
University of León (Spain): www.e-myuniversity.eu/ule
Stockholm University (Sweden): www.e-myUniversity.eu/su.
The portals are based on the same software solution developed within the MyUniversity project and will run in pilot phase for a period of 20 months. The participating universities will be able to:
Easily publish European consultations on the Bologna Process on their e-Participation portal and then allow university personnel and students to provide feedback on them; Disseminate key information on the Bologna process; Create online surveys and discussions that can enhance the existing traditional “on-site” meetings organized by them for their own decision-making processes; Track issues raised on the other university e-Participation portals, which could have similarities to the ones they are experiencing, thus allowing them to further cooperate and even create a common policy on how to tackle these issues; Gather their students’ views on the key issues affecting them; Provide their personnel and students with online collaboration tools that help them to interact with their colleagues in order to collect data for both university and EU level reports.
These portals give the opportunity to the university work groups to interact with the higher education stakeholders and provide input to the national and European associations where they belong. Moreover, the university members who are active in the Bologna decision-making process can use the e-Participation tools to interact with other university members and easily extract conclusions that will be used as direct input to their work. In addition, higher education decision makers of all levels (university, national, European), could launch on these portals several e-Participation processes related to different decision making activities and thus clearly communicate the value of such participation in their final decision.
Launched on October 1st, 2010, MyUniversity is a two and a half year project that will demonstrate how the universities could use an array of specific e-Participation tools for involving university members and stakeholders in transparent higher education decision-making processes at local, national and EU level. MyUniversity is currently supported by the European Commission (ICT Policy Support Programme) and involves 13 partners from 7 EU Member States: Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Lithuania, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden. For more information, please visit the project website at www.myuniversity-project.eu.
The European Union, staying loyal to the Bologna declaration and the resulting Bologna Process, has been moving towards a unified European Higher Education Area. Today, the Bologna declaration objectives are still valid and more important than ever. The ones that have not yet been achieved require further commitment. One of the key aspects towards the success of the Bologna Process is the close cooperation and interaction between governments, higher education institutions, students, staff, employers and quality assurance agencies. MyUniversity project will equip universities from Bulgaria, Lithuania, Spain, Slovakia and Sweden with a cutting edge e-Participation platform so they can actively participate in the higher education decision making process with valuable input towards future policies and legislation, both locally and at European level.