Abstract:

Establishing European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) at the Open University of Cyprus (OUC), was challenging and at the same time was a demanding and time-consuming task. The process of implementing ECTS to all OUC Study Programs and specifically to all Modules is an ongoing process that originally started at 2015. OUC achieved to set up the ECTS as a mandatory process for all newly developed and offered Study Programs. The academics have the obligation to implement the ECTS documentation for the Study Programs as well as for the all the Modules offered by the university. The outcome of the OUC transformation from regular credits to ECTS credits is successful. It is giving an official, universal and concrete format to all University Study Programs and Modules. After the ECTS process was setup, all academics are mandated to follow the specific guidelines on their Study Programs structures.

The most difficult task that OUC faced during the transition period (transforming regular credits to ECTS credits) was to find the right incentives to motivate the academics to accept the fact that they have to prepare the necessary ECTS documentation. One of the main reasons that it was difficult to persuade them was the fact that most of them were working at OUC on a temporary basis.

The ECTS documents request all the information needed based on the methodology that the academics are following into their eClass. The academics were also challenged to find ways to reflect as precisely as possible the workload of the average students per week and per assigned activity (exercise, assignments, exams, studying etc) into defined processes.

Applying ECTS on the Study Programs and Modules is an add-on for the OUC and has multi-dimension benefits. Benefits were encountered on the students, on the candidates since they are OUC’s target group and on the academics because of the functional structure that guides them in order to develop their Study Programs. Incorporating the ECTS into the OUC standard processes gave an uplift to the OUC Study Programs, since OUC aligns with the Bologna Declaration primary objectives, which are vital for forming the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Last, OUC Study Programs are structured and can be more easily compared with other Universities.

Keywords:

ECTS, Bologna, Programs and Modules structure, Distance Learning, syllabus, Diploma recognition