The UGRCat: a new step towards depeer Arqus integration in mobility and recognition policies

The University of Granada (UGR) has launched the UGRCat, a bilingual (Spanish-English) catalogue of official programmes, courses and lines of research. This Catalogue is an important step forward towards deeper integration in the policies, strategies and actions affecting mobility and recognition of studies programmes across the Arqus universities.

UGRCat is a bilingual (Spanish-English) catalogue of official programmes, courses and lines of research offered by the University of Granada. Its development was proposed by the Vice-Rectorate for Internationalization as a response to the commitment undertaken regarding the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education and as an instrument to support and promote the internationalization process of the UGR.

A pilot version of the resource with information on undergraduate and international degrees was presented to the UGR community on 13th June. Information on postgraduate degrees will be included in the near future.

The UGRCat resource of the University of Granada contributes greatly to the advancement and consolidation of the Course Catalogue of the Arqus universities. This resource is being developed to facilitate the study exchanges across the partners by including relevant information for prospective and exchange students such as:

• General info on the institution, of interest for prospective and international students.
• A description of individual programmes.
• A description of individual courses, which shows a reduced version of the official teaching guides.

This tool has been conceived as a bilingual (with the potential to become multilingual), centralised and publicly accessible catalogue, the primary objective of which is to provide information on the official degree programmes, courses and lines of research of the University of Granada. Therefore, this resource is mainly aimed at prospective students, as well as other internal stakeholders (UGR teaching and research staff, UGR administrative staff) and external stakeholders (partner institutions, educational bodies, etc.). Its design focuses on providing clear and accessible information to be used as an access point to the University’s educational offer.

In relation to the functions of UGRCat for the end user, this resource features a search system based on simple and advanced approximation, an alphabetical index and a degree map. This allows you to search for programmes, courses, and lines of research by keywords, codes, branches of knowledge, campuses, mobility options, etc. This flexibility facilitates access to information records from a variety of entry points, depending on the user’s profile, needs and knowledge. Information fields include admission requirements, the original name of the awarded degree, the duration of the programme, the teaching modality, etc. In addition, up-to-date information is provided on educational components in the form of courses, such as their code, name, type, language of instruction, content, year of instruction, etc.

The metadata model adapted for UGRCat will guarantee the interoperability, both internally and externally, of the multilingual resources developed within the UGR. It will also contribute to the implementation of international standards with stakeholders who need to exchange multilingual data with the UGR.

This tool represents a response to the commitment made by the University of Granada to publish and regularly update its catalogue of academic programmes on its institutional website, both in the official language of the institution and in English, as established in the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education.

For the Arqus Alliance, this advancement in the internationalization strategy of the University of Granada is a new lever towards deeper university integration and inter-university cooperation in mobility and recognition policies. The tool contributes to the gradual enhancement and consolidation of a joint offer in discipline modules and, progressively, in transversal, interdisciplinary and challenge-based modules and full joint degree programmes. In particular, it is a key preliminary step for the achievement of the full and automatic recognition of all mobility study periods and of all diplomas and certificates awarded by Arqus institutions to which the Alliance aspires, including microcredentials.

News prepared by Silvia Montero Martínez, Director of the Secretariat for Language Services and Resources of the UGR. The sections about Arqus have been produced by the Communication team of the Alliance.