The international workshop within the Erasmus+ project “Strengthening the ecosystem for sustainable student mobility” – SuMoS (project number 2024-1-HR01-KA220-HED-000254853) was held in Žilina, Slovakia, from 19 to 21 November 2025, hosted by the Faculty of Management Science and Informatics of the University of Žilina. Organized as part of WP4: Recognition of courses within student mobility, the workshop gathered 19 teachers of all five partner institutions for an intensive three-day program focused on improving mechanisms for course comparison, learning design quality, and recognition processes that support smoother and more transparent recognition of courses within student mobility.
The participating institutions included the University of Zagreb – Faculty of Organization and Informatics (FOI), Varaždin, Croatia; the University of Maribor – Faculty of Organizational Sciences (FOV), Kranj, Slovenia; the University of Žilina – Faculty of Management Science and Informatics (FRI), Žilina, Slovakia; the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Organizational Sciences (FON), Belgrade, Serbia; and ESIEA Graduate School of Engineering, Paris, France.
During the intensive three day workshop teachers were working on the quality of course learning design and comparison principles to enable smoother recognition of courses within student mobility. According to the mid-term evaluation of the Erasmus+ programme 2014-2020, 34% of students faced problems with the courses and other academic aspects within mobility and, according to the Erasmus Student Network to Erasmus+ 2021-2027 Implementation report, credit recognition was perceived as a blocking factor to participation in mobility by 30% of non-mobile students.
Therefore, the aim of this workshop was to train teachers for quality course learning design (LD) and course comparison. First part of the workshop included presentation and analysis of manual course comparison based on basic descriptors held by Prof. Peter Marton and Prof. Katarina Pažur Aničić, where more than 80 courses from five partner institutions were compared. Additionally, guided by Prof. Blaženka Divjak, teachers were supported to create learning design for their courses, through active participation in the MOOC Learning Design in the AI-era, and using the Balanced Design Planning tool (BDP), resulting from previous Erasmus+ projects (Rapide and iLED). The second part of the workshop continued with activities dedicated to the quality aspects of learning design. Participants first engaged in a discussion on learning design quality criteria, after which they worked in parallel focus groups addressing three key themes: a priori and a posteriori evaluation of LD quality, course comparison criteria, and functionalities of the BDP tool to support course comparison in student mobility.
The workshop results serve as a basis for further project activities—establishing course comparison principles and learning design quality criteria, followed by upgrading the LD tool to support processes related to course comparison within student mobility.
Along with the workshop, Project Management Board Meeting took place.
