2 Education

In the educational vision of Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), the development from student to critical, international world citizen is key. The education at EUR stimulates students to see the bigger picture and explore different points of views, and to find new solutions. Creating team players with a leading role in the development and valorisation of academic knowledge and skills for a globalised society.

To achieve this, EUR offers students and staff a demanding and challenging learning environment. Active academic learning is key therein. EUR stimulates and facilitates a community, in which academic staff shares knowledge on innovation and development of education. Staff members challenge each other to be innovative, excellent and intentional in their lectures. They are trained in didactics and prepared for the educational tasks. Lecturers take their responsibility for the development of their educational talent.

The student’s learning process is key with activating, motivating and stimulating seminars. The campus functions as a meeting place, where knowledge within and between different disciplines is developed and exchanged. Interactive online education enriches the personal contact on the campus, and even the broader (international) community is involved in the academic debate.

The student population’s diversity contributes to the development of independence, creativity, vigour and entrepreneurship. EUR stimulates all students to participate in the academic debate and to be part of the Erasmus community, bringing their own power, talent and background to the table. By giving and receiving feedback, students develop skills to value different points of view. 

The current initial education consists of 22 Bachelor programmes, 41 Master programmes and 10 Research Masters. These degree programmes are offered by 7 faculties and 2 institutes. Furthermore, there are 15 post-initial, accredited Master programmes for professionals. Please refer to Appendix 3 for an overview of all programmes. 

The Financial Support Fund’s plans provide financial compensation for study delays caused by personal circumstances, grants and fee waivers. In 2019, a total of 723 students received support from EUR’s Financial Support Fund. Among these, 159 students received an individualised governance scholarship due to their membership of the University Council, a committee of education or faculty council. Apart from that, 377 students received a governance scholarship due to their position in the board of governance of a recognized student association at EUR. 

The investments in proceeds of the student loan reform, have been continued in the investment plans for the quality agreements 2019-2024. In July 2019, the University Council approved the plans combined in a Quality and Innovation calendar titled Working together on a World-class Education. The plans emphasise further investments in small scale education by employing extra tutors; better counsel of students and the development of new education, in part with online assisted learning. Three overarching themes have been named: Improving student well-being, creating impact with education, and offering a new innovative space for experimentation with educational methods of the future. There will be extra support for the professionalisation of lecturers, for example by offering more assistance to tutors and the hiring of Learning Innovators who actively help lecturers in creating new course content. In the

The investment of the proceeds from the student loan reform have been continued in the quality agreement’s investment plans 2019-2024. In July 2019, the University Council agreed with the combined plans, composed in a Quality Assurance and Innovation calendar titled Collaborating on World-class Education. The plans emphasize further investments in small scale education, by employing extra tutors; better counselling of students, and development of new education, for example by online learning. Three overarching themes have been agreed upon: Improving student well-being, creating impact by education, and offering an innovative space for experimentation with the educational methods of the future. The current policy encouraging professionalisation of lecturers will be extending upon, by better counselling of tutors and by employing Learning Innovators that will actively help lecturers to design new course content. In the outline of the quality agreement, it has been agreed upon that the University Council acts as a co-creator of the central themes.

Audit Quality Agreements 2019-2024
In November, a NVAO panel visited EUR. The panel promised the level of ambition and the support base ofn the EUR’s vision, and gave a positive recommendation to the Ministry of Education.

Community for Learning & Innovation (CLI) is a networking organisation that focuses on renewal and improvement of education. CLI connects people, and stimulates knowledge sharing and educational innovation’s facilities. Lecturers and the faculties’ Learning Innovation (LI) teams may use the Education Lab. They receive professional training and support, question-based and tailored to fit to suit their own innovation projects. Besides, CLI supports students who launch projects themselves to enrich their education. CLI appoints dozens of CLI fellows every year, who fulfil a pioneering role in educational innovations, and lead scientific research into these innovations.

Four themes

Faculties (LI Teams, lectureres and students) may receive support at CLI in the following areas:

• Professional development of lecturers. By educating EUR lecturers in a simulating, inspiring way, they are not only reinforcing their educational quality and innovation, but are they also able to adjust their education to social change, new didactive perspectives from scientific research and practice, and new technological possibilities.
• Educational innovation and digitalisation. CLI offers support at redesigning education, review, multidisciplinary support, and incentives for digitalisation of education.
• Educational research. CLI stimulates research into educational innovations on all CLI themes. This leads to publications and input for new developments and educational policy, contributing to the quality culture.
• Student projects. This includes student initiatives to enrich and innovate education.

Lecturers’ professional development

• Renewing BKO PGO with a blended and activating intent
• Participation of 26 lecturers on the Senior Qualification Education (SKO), aiming for discipline-specific educational innovation.
• Start of new Educational Leadership Programme (LOL) with three EUR participants. The programme aims to equip educational directors with instruments to achieve discipline-overarching educational innovations.
• Four educational fellows who will occupy themselves with educational innovation in the following areas:
  • Developing a Portfolio tool for future oriented soft skills
  • Getting the bigger picture; The right perspective in medical process
  • Educational innovations in theoretical philosophy
  • Equipping physicians with social-medical competence
• Developing six new MicroLabs, i.e. short how-to modules, who continue on BKO. There is a total of eleven MicroLabs that lecturerers can attend right now. In 2019, 166 lecturers participated in a MicroLab. As a new, very appreciated activity, two MicroLabs on didactics were developed for student-assistants and tutors.
• Starting an online tool to help lecturers design and execute education. This flexible application proposes lecturers the most suitable work form based on variables such as group size, available time and the activity’s aim.  
• Start of the development of a learning- and qualification programme for members of the examination board. This way, new and current members of the examination boards are prepared for execution assurance tasks in the area of academic assessment.
• Supported by CLI, 21 lecturers started a training English on C1-level and 14 lecturers started a English training programme on C2-level.

Educational innovation and digitalisation
In 2019, distinction was made between educational innovation and digitalisation projects.
Proposals for educational innovation projects were often initiated by lecturers, who wanted to redesign an educational component, with Risbo’s aid. These projects often consisted of a video component, for which the Studio was called in for help. As a diverse range of innovation projects were initiated in 2019, all faculties received support.

A selection of innovation projects, initiated in 2019:

• Communicating Sustainability in an Intercultural Context: a course that students may choose as part of their honours programme, in conjunction with ESHCC, EUC, Nanjing Normal University in China and was made in co-creation with students. During the course, students are confronted with the ecological, social and economic impact of consumption.
• Development of Educational videos 'Disorders in Children' (ESSB)
• Pilot Goal-setting & Chatbot: aimed at developing and evaluating an intervention that aims to improve student welfare and increase resilience and academic performance of students.
• Sustainable Development Goals escape room: confronting students with big social challenges surrounding production and consumption, in an innovative way.
• Developing the educational line Philosophical Academic Skills for a neatless integration of skills transfer for bachelor’s students, such as presenting and debating.

These projects consist of interdisciplinarity, educational innovation (e.g. co-creation with students) and societal impact. Thus, thet are fine examples of Strategy 2024.

The digitalisation projects are often complex projects that require a lot of expertise, time and money. In conjunction with the faculties, and departing from the Masterplan Digitalisation, projects are prioritized. In 2019, a lot of digitalisation projects have been worked on, aiming:

• To organise and increase the use of digital exams
• To create learning analytics for lecturers, students, researchers and management.
• To stimulate the use of (open) digital learning methods
• To improve the feedback via FeedbackFruits, and to develop an extra functionality of ‘automated checking on writing’, aided by artificial intelligence.
• To create possibilities of a thesis management system, a portfolio system and the use of practice software for maths and statistics.
• To explore possibilities for gamification and virtual classroom.

EUR characterizes itself as a university that not only values educational innovation, but also empirical evaluation and its effects. Reinforcing educational research contributes to a large extent to the educational knowledge, and therefore the educational quality at EUR.

In 2019, four PhD projects within the Research agenda Quality and Study were running:

• Education Design Matters: Ability Peer Effects at the university (successfully completed).
• Testing in Higher Education: Decisions on students’ performance’ (successfully completed).
• The effect of Nominal = Normal on study achievements, motivation and student characteristics.
• How an evidence-based goal-setting intervention decreases the achievement gap in gender and ethnicity.

Furthermore, there were seven active research fellows, with the following subjects:

• Intercultural competence relating to study success
• Interaction between student and curriculum
• Effects of the “ace yourself study app”.
• Influence of admission policy and BSA
• Decentral selection for medicine programme
• Primary care physicians in the spotlight
• Effects of learning line “the medicine of the week”
• Improvement of knowledge and skills of students in qualitative data analysis via blended learning

Also, the development of the research database has been ongoing, to make this database suitable for educational research in the broadest sense.

tudents-for-Students (S4S) allows students to contribute to educational improvement themselves. In 2019, the criteria for S4S initiatives were broadened to include student development in areas other than purely academic. New partners in addition to the Erasmus Center for Entrepreneurship Students (ECE Students) are Enactus, Rethinking Economics and Erasmus Sustainability Hub. The cooperation with all partnerships is doing well.

The number of initiatives has also changed. Three initiatives were discontinued - Asset Management Study Association, Education in Transition and The Research Group - the Erasmus public speaking academy initiative was incorporated into LifeVersity and three initiatives were launched: Student & Leefstijl, Happy Students & Psychedelic Science Collective - Rotterdam.

The Education Lab is CLI’s central facility, with a state-of-the-art studio. In the lab, lecturers, students and support staff collaborate on projects aimed at innovation and improvement of education. The LI teams can use the facilities and services of the Education Lab, if desired. For news, events and experiences, they can refer to MyEUR. It is the CLI core team’s duty to shape the service in the Lab and the community, and to support and connect people.

After its opening in November 2018, a small group soon discovered the Lab. In 2019, the Lab’s occupancy has increased with positive peaks in May and November. A year after its opening, a poll has been held among clients (fellows, lecturers, project managers and students). They have been interviewed on the processes and quality of service in the Lab. Based on the results, improvements have been arranged to further increase the use of the Lab. 

At the Education Lab’s opening, CLI received an inspiring gift from the Strategy Lab Future Oriented Education: a hackathon was organized where students could translate innovative ideas into projects, under the supervision of lecturers. The successful Future Education Hackathon in May 2019 resulted in three winning ideas, turned into projects under the CLI flagship: 1) Coversity (Co-creation in Education), 2) EURwallet (Personal Learning Routes) and 3) Erasmus Center for Social Engagement (Real World Problems).

On 25 March 2019, The Diversity & Inclusion Office and the Rector Magnificus Professor Rutger Engels, organised a working conference on drop-outs in Rotterdam. Together with our stakeholders – the city council, teachers of primary and secondary schools, the Ministry of Education and National Programme Rotterdam-Zuid – we looked at how we could make studying at our university as accessible as possible. The working sessions’ aim was to share knowledge, reinforce networks, and as input for an approach on ‘early outreach’.

In the summer of 2019, EUR signed an agreement with Student Pride NL. EUR stresses the importance to jointly contribute to the realization of a safe study-, work- and living climate concerning sexual and gender diversity. This is achieved by, among others, knowledge sharing and networking possibilities with other companies and institutions, especially with (pride organisations) of universities and universities of applied sciences.

On 9 October 2019, the rector magnificus signed, on behalf of EUR, the UN Declaration of intentfor students with disabilities. This declaration of intent for Higher Education Institutions is based on UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and is directed at equal opportunities, accessibility and personal autonomy for all students. In the process of signing this declaration, attention was brought to students’ experiences and the EUR team ‘studying with a disability’ was brought in the spotlights. This team aims to contribute to the accessibility of university and education, and stimulates, where needed, the availability of student resources.

The Living Roomis a dedicated space on campus, created by the University Council and a collective of students from different student organisations who direct themselves at improving student well-being, inclusion and the well-being of the EUR community in general. The student initiatives that are currently involved in the Living Room are The Us Space, Happy Student Society, Erasmus School of Colour and Extraordinary Life. The Living Room organises all kinds of activities, such as a book club, office hours held by a student pastor, the Diversity & Inclusion Office and ambassadors of the Happy Student Society.

The Us Space, an initiative of two students, was launched on 24 January 2019. The platform is designed to encourage freedom of speech, and is aimed at stimulating communication and tolerance on campus. This happens by monthly conversations – RealTalks – on religion, ethnicity, discrimination and cultural differences. Within a safe environment, themes that are considered taboo are discussed. This year topics included cultural appropriation, drugs, alcohol & my circle, and the modern relationship.

The Erasmus Sustainability Hub organised in the previous year Erasmus Sustainability Days: a recurring event, held annually, involving an increasing number of students and companies. Companies promote themselves to students, and give work-shops. In the presence of Aldermen for sustainability Arno Bonte, Erasmus Sustainability Hub held its first birthday on the new location on the first floor of the Mandeville Building. 

A small first step for the integration of sustainability in education is the new Microlab Sustainable Development, developed by ESHCC in conjunction with Risbo and CLI. In this workshop, lecturers are assisted in making a plan to integrate the topic of sustainability in their course, and they are provided with the possibilities to put this plan into practice. The first pilot has taken place, and during the course of 2020, the workshop will be made available for all EUR lecturers.

To integrate sustainability in education, much more is needed than just a Microlab. Therefore, an implementation plan has been developed in 2019 by the working group Sustainability in Education at EUR. The group consists of academic staff and students (including students of the Erasmus Sustainability Hub) of all faculties, and under supervision of Professor Derk Loorbach. Besides conversations with all Deans and Programme Directors, the group organized a public session for the academic community in November, to receive input and feedback on the findings. The Executorial Board has recently approved the final implementation plan. As a result, the new Minor Science and Practice for Transformative Changehas been launched very quickly. The Minor will also be available for students at Leiden University and TU Delft, and will be taught for the first time in the fall of 2020.

Finally, in 2019, a lot of efforts were made to develop the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)-Dashboard. The EUR achievements on education, research and management are assessed on their compliance to the sustainable development goals of the United Nations. A first study has been performed on the quantity of publications and their effects. These analyses will be extended in the upcoming years, and will be published, so that EUR students and staff members can actively contribute to these development goals, while at the same time being transparent to the outside world on how we aim to achieve these goals.

Please refer to the Research chapter, to learn more about the collaboration Leiden-Delft-Erasmus.

The National Student Survey (NSE) is an annual national satisfaction survey, held among all students at all Higher Education Institutions. In 2019, ca. 6800 EUR students (24%) participated. In general, thet are satisfied with their educational programme: the average student satisfaction rate is 4.0 on a scale of 1 to 5. On most themes, an increase in the satisfaction can be observed, compared to the previous year.

EUR students score themes relating to educational content the best, such as Content, General skills and Academic skills. Themes of attention remain Preparation on professional career, Student counseling and Quality care.

EUR used to receive a low score on the theme Study facilities (including suitability of student workspots). Our large investment in workspots for students has paid off, when we look at the satisfaction scores. Since 2018, the average score for Student facilities has increased to 3.5 in 2019.

The average score for Quality care increased from 3.2 to 3.3. In previous students argued that information on educational quality and survey results should be improved. We have put in a lot of effort to improve the feedback of educational surveys’ results to students and the involvement of students in improvement measures and innovation plans.

Despite the fact, that further improvement is desirable, the average increase appears to confirm that EUR is on the right track concerning these themes.

In July 2019, the Directive Facilitation of Examination Boards has been approved. This directive is effective as of 1 January 2020, and aims to facilitate Examination Boards (even more) in their assurance tasks.

By submitting a project plan, all faculties could qualify for a budget to enable the facilitation according to their own insights. The seven submitted plans have been approved and started. In October 2020, the Examination Boards will submit an accountability report of the project. These projects are aimed at getting more insight leading to a more positive assessment of themselves.

It is important that the faculties mutually exchange information on their projects’ progress. In the end of 2019, the Examination Boards have shared their projects and their (preliminary) findings (if available) during a joint meeting. The next steps are to be taken in 2020. 

Core tasks
Examination Boards have to determine whether a student fulfills all the requirements to be awarded a degree. The Directive contains eleven core tasks concerning the assurance of exam quality. On this basis, a checklist of assurance tasks has been made, delivering the Examination Board an elaborate insight in the core tasks and their fulfillment. Also, the checklist serves as a baseline.

In 2019, five Guidelines for Examination Boards have been released, in Dutch and in English. The guidelines outline the core tasks and explain the execution thereof. All guidelines have been centered on one or more core tasks, containing a legal framework and an explanation of the Examination Boards’ responsibilities concerning the specific core tasks. Yhere is a specific focus on the points of attention at EUR.

Professionalisation meetings
In 2019 zijn vier professionaliseringsbijeenkomsten voor de examencommissies georganiseerd. Centraal hierbij stonden de Richtlijn, de ingediende projectvoorstellen, het jaarverslag en het jaarplan. Ook is aandacht besteed aan digitaal toetsen, fraudepreventie, richtlijnen voor examinatoren, de organisatie en procedures rondom tentamens en examens, rapportage en facilitering. Eind 2019 is een reeks nieuwe themabijeenkomsten gepland voor 2020 met thema’s die de examencommissies aandroegen. 
 

Annual Plan
In the Annual Plan, Examination Boards have to clarify whether they need the means, apart from the project means, pursuant to Directive 2019, or whether they want to grow towards the amounts of the new Directive. Therefore, the format for the annual report and the desired elements of the argumentation concerning the Directive 2019 has been discussed during the professionalization meeting.

Meeting Groups Secretaries and Chairpersons Examination Board

In 2019, the secretaries of the Examination Boards held a collective meeting (OSE). The same applies to the Chairpersons (OVE). Furthermore, collective meetings took place. Later, professionalisation meetings were held.

EUR has a community of more than 130,000 alumni. 25% of them are internationals. To maintain the contact with graduates and future graduates is of critical importance in EUR’s new mission “to create positive societal impact”. Therefore, alumni management is one of the high priority aims in Strategy 2024.

In 2019, the plan “Connecting Our Erasmian Community – Alumni Strategy” has been launched to show our dedication and efforts regarding this vital community. Part of this plan is a significant investment in a central team that is fully focused on alumni involvement and offers programmes and events that are interesting to both parties. It aims to induce a larger sense of belonging to the university and our mission among alumni. Our mission is to address the most important global societal challenges of the 21^st century in our education, our research and to shape a next generation of societal engaged graduates for the labour market.  Our alumni can help us in our mission.

Many faculties – especially RSM, ISS and HIS – already perform well in executing the plan to increase alumni involvement. Furthermore, alumni data are stored in a central database, increasing the possibility to maintain in touch with our involved alumni. Our alumni magazine EA aims to keep informing alumni. Our engagement platform EUR Connect also contributes to our aim to reinforce connections with alumni. The EUR-wide fundraiser campaign Challenge Accepted received philanthropical contributions from many senior alumni.

Starting January 2020, we implement an extensive strategy to increase the involvement of our alumni community. The first step is to employ a team of professionals, specialised in the area of alumni involvement, that is responsible for high quality communication, events and maintenance of the database and volunteers. This team will involve our alumni community in our programmes, supporting the strategic aims of the university.

Student in the Spotlight makes students more visible during the opening of the academic year. Every year, one EUR student, or several EUR students get an opportunity to tell something about their initiative, project or activity. The chosen project has to be societal relevant, inspire and should be ambitious.

In 2019, Ruud Verbraak was in the spotlight. In 2017, Verbraak started the project Kleine Grote Denkers. Out of their passion for education, philosophy and child development, it is their aim to bring philosophy into the primary schools. “I am proud to announce that we already have inspired 1,500 primary school students with our project. Teachers, parents, and especially the children increasingly express their appreciation for what we do and how we do it. I am proud of the impact we have generated with Kleine Grote Denkers, even though we just started, and we hope to reach another thousands of children in the next years.”

The recently renovated library offers 900 study spots. Students enjoy being in the library, with over 25,000 people visiting weekly. The library not only serves a great place to study, but is also a place to meet each other, and to receive help with papers and theses. The library has an extensive offer of courses in scholarly communication skills: varying from the search of academic sources, academic referencing, and handling financial datasets.

The library offers a service for composing digital readers (course packs). Lecturers can easuly compose their required literature lists via Canvas, and manage it via the repository. The library checks whether fees need to paid for copyrights, and arranges this with collective management organisations. In 2019, all faculties have implemented these services in their education. Nationally, all universities have decided to adopt this EUR tool as a national standard.

Learn more about the University Library in the chapter Research.