DISCLAIMER - WARNING

Guidelines for the ERASMUS+ program

Here you can find some guidelines that will help you when you need to interact with the academic supervisor for international mobility (RAM) regarding the Erasmus/Erasmus+ program. The goal is having you to provide the necessary information so that we can be sure that your Learning Agreement can be accepted without delays. Unfortunately the online system does not provide sufficient information, so you are asked to follow the following process in the various phases of your Erasmus+ visit.

Of course, in addition to these guidelines you must follow the official Erasmus+ procedures found in the call or given to you by the administration. In case that the information given here, or the information given to you by me (in person or via email) are in conflict with what is written in the call (the details in the call change every year and I can make mistakes), please contact me again and mention it to make sure that you don’t make your application invalid.

There are four entities with whom you will interact at Sapienza when you participate at the Erasmus+ program:

• Your RAM (Responsabile Accademico per la Mobilità / Academic Supervisor for International Mobility)

• Your RAEF (Referente Amministrativo Erasmus di Facoltà / Administrative Faculty Manager for Erasmus) 

The RAM is ONLY in charge of evaluating the compatibility of your Erasmus application with respect to the academic content, and for assigning grades when you return. 

The RAM is NOT in charge of signing any document outside the automated procedure trough the official web portal.

The Erasmus office of the Faculty of Information Engineering, Informatics, and Statistics, headed is responsible for all the administrative procedures. They are those that can answer you questions about administrative issues. You can contact the Erasmus office at erasmus-i3s@uniroma1.it.

If you need to change your study plan you must do that interacting with the President of your graduation course BEFORE the submission of your Learning Agreement.

Check who is your RAM

To find the name and contact of your RAM and RAEF (as well as to get all the usefull information on the Mobility program) you should visit the following webpage:

https://www.uniroma1.it/it/pagina/coordinatori-e-responsabili-accademici-mobilita-internazionale-0

 I (Christian Napoli) am the RAM assigned to students in Computer Engineering
(Data Science is a different course, Computer Science is a different faculty!!!)

Mail exchange with the RAM

For all the communications with the RAM (me) send emails strictly applying the following rules

1. Write from your INSTITUTIONAL email (...@studenti.uniroma1.it) 

2. Write to my STUDENT'S reserved email contact (c.napoli@uniroma1.it)

3. Use a proper subject and prefix it  with the code [RAM] (e.g.: [RAM] Learning Agreement proposal)

4. Clearly state your name, course of study, year of study, and student id

5. Read this web page in all its parts before contacting

FAILING TO APPLY THESE RULES COULD LEAD TO EMAIL MISPLACEMENT AND LOSS DUE TO THE AUTOMATIC SORTING SYSTEM

Course Mapping (before the application)

BEFORE the submission of you Learning Agreement I strongly encourage you to interact informally with your RAM (me) also by sending a proper Course Mapping regarding your Learning Agreement proposal with the related exams' substitutions AND your study plan here in Sapienza (the list of ALL the exams that you should pass in Rome).

For Course Mapping we mean a table that contains, information such as:

• The name of the university and the department/faculty abroad

• What semester the mapping refers to (semester 1, semester 2, semesters 1&2), and 

• A list of the courses that you plan to do abroad (as in your Learning Agreement). For each course:

  1.  the name/title

  2. the semester

  3. the number of hours (only frontal lectures counts)

  4. the number of ECTS

  5. a link to the course web page and  topics

•  A list of the corresponding courses of your study plan in Sapienza to be substituted (as in your Learning Agreement).. For each course:

  1.  the name/title

  2. the semester

  3. the number of hours (only frontal lectures counts)

  4. the number of CFUs

  5. a link to the course web page and  topics

For the course selection follow the rules in the next session (Learning Agreement), while you can refer to the following template: LINK

Learning Agreement (before the mobility)

Few important rules for the learning agreement:

• When applying for a position you must compile a Learning Agreement (LA)

• In the offical call you can find the locations to which universities you can apply

• You need to find a set of courses similar* to the courses here in Rome for which you ask the substitution

• Language exams (e.g. English, Spanish, eetc...) are NOT eligible for your Learning Agreement

• You need to find a minimum number of credits ECTS (CFU) per semester (as stated in the call) that you plan to spend abroad

• The number of substituted CFU and HOURS of LECTURE in Sapienza must be EQUAL or LESS than the number of ECTS and HOURS abroad

• ONLY FRONTAL LECTURES CAN BE COUNTED AS HOURS ABROAD

• If you want to work on your graduation thesis during your Erasmus remember that you MUST leave at least 1 CFU in Rome

• If you want to do an internship abroad is OK, but you cannot substitute any exam in Sapienza with that.

IMPORTANT: you should try to pass EVERY exam you have selected abroad if you want to be sure to have recognized all the substitutions here in Sapienza, therefore I advice against an excessive amount of ECTS (see the Exams Validation section).

*Note: the similarity of courses abroad with respect to your study plan in Sapienza is not 1-to-1 but all-to-all, so there is some flexibility, however you must comply with a certain degree of compatibility (mainly similar topics, with a certain flexibility on the single course CFU/ECTS number).

Sometime to find a good set of courses abroad, you could need to change your study plan here in Rome. If you are not sure that the new study plan is acceptable, talk with the President of you course of study.

To make sure that the Learning Agreement is acceptable, you should contact the RAM (me) trough email (see below).

Note that the RAM cannot recommend you what courses to take. For example, do not send a request of the type: “I want to go to University of blah, here is the list of courses that they offer, can you recommend some to put in my program?” If however, you have some specific suggestions, then you can contact the RAM to have a confirmation of their validity before the official submission of your Learning Agreement.

Before you leave you will need to fill the form related to your information and your Learning Agreement into the official system.

The "RAM Signature" will be provided ONLY TROUGH the official system, or in the OFFICIAL documents provided by the Office.

I STRONGLY ADVICE YOU TO SEND ME YOUR COURSE MAPPING (see above) BEFORE THE  OFFICIAL SUBMISSION OF YOUR LA.

Change Form (during the mobility)

While I STRONGLY ADVICE AGAINST any modification of your Learning Agreement after approval, in EXCEPTIONAL cases it is possible to modify it by submitting a Change Form.

Remember that in this case you must make the request and get the approval of the change form before you start the courses.

In this case send me an email BEFORE the official request with:

• The learning agreement that has been approved.

• The changes in courses that you want to do, and the reason for the changes.

• The final mapping after you change the courses.

Refer to the section Course Mapping and Learning Agreement for the selection and communications with the RAM.

Exams Validation (after the mobility)

In order to have your grades accepted at Sapienza, after you come back, the university that you have attended must send to Sapienza in an official way the certifications for courses that you have passed and the related grade. The conversion process is not always obvious, it depends by the international agreement and the conversion tables that the RAM must follow.

When you come back from the mobility with a the following situations applies: 

A) If you managed to submit a Learning Agreement with a 1-to-1 exam mapping:

1. • Passed exams will be validated (you will find them in your student's record) 

   • Failed exams will be discarded and you will have to pass the corresponding exams as in your study plan before mobility

B) If you submitted a learning Agreement without a 1-to-1 exam mapping:

1. If you come back with ALL exams PASSED

   • All the exams will be validated (you will find them in your student's record)

2. If  you come back with some exams FAILED:

   • Exams validation will be conditional to the proportion of topics covered

   • Uncovered topics will be discarded and you will have to pass the corresponding exams as in your study plan before mobility

   • For partially covered topics you could be asked to do partial exams to compensate

   • There is no assurance on the substitutions/validations

For this reason it is quite IMPORTANT  to pass EVERY exam you have selected abroad if you want to be sure to have recognized all the substitutions here in Sapienza, therefore I advice against an excessive amount of ECTS abroad, as well as to apply a principle of equilibrium and fairness in your exam selection.

COMMON MISTAKES

Here a list of common mistake that will lead to the rejection of your LA and, consequently, of your candidature for the ERASMUS+ program:

• • Emails without the study plan (from infostud) attached

  • Emails without the excel template with the course mapping is missing o incomplete

  • Sending documents in different emails (everything must be placed in one single email everytime)

  • Excel file without the CREDITS columns

  • Excel file without the HOURS columns

  • Excel file  without the mapping (central columns)

  • Excel file without links to the program of EACH SINGLE course

  • Official documents without your signature

etc...

PLEASE BE SURE TO FOLLOW ALL THE ABOVE MENTIONED RULES BEFORE CONTACTING ME