The final conference of the first Erasmus without Paper project (EWP), a digitalisation initiative co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme took place on the 26th September. The project aims at creating an electronic network allowing universities to exchange data about and for the mobility within Erasmus+ to minimise the need for paper documents. This will make administrative processes much faster and efficient, both for students and universities.
The project links the servers of all 
the participating universities into a single network to exchange data whenever needed. By the end of the year the project will reach over 1000 Higher Education Institutions. Erasmus without Paper gathers not only universities, but also commercial software providers, national data repositories and other consortia as well as student organisations.
In the meantime a follow-up project Erasmus Without Paper 2.0 has been approved. Until 2020 most universities in Europe will gradually be able to exchange data and integrate EWP in their internal procedures. It is hoped that by the start of the successor of the Erasmus+ project EWP will have become mainstream.
A competence centre will be set up to help users go through the transition period. Simultaneously, the digitalisation will proceed as the EIDAS regulation (Electronic Identification, Authentication and Signatures) and the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) will become operational all over Europe.
Finally, EWP 2.0 will launch an Open Source University Alliance that will bring together existing and newly-developed software and make it compatible and freely available. Existing initiatives such as OLA (Online Learning Agreement), Egracons (European Grade Conversion System) and the ESC (European Student Card) will form part of this initiative.
More information on www.erasmuswithoutpaper.eu.