One of the key aspects towards the creation ofa uni�ed European Higher Education Area is the close cooperation and interaction between governments, higher education institutions, stu-dents, sta�, employers and quality assurance agencies. To facilitate this process, MyUniversitywas conceived as an innovative project that aims to involve all university members and stakehold-ers in the higher education decision process, through a transparent and extremely user friendly e-Participation platform. �e partici-pant universities form Bulgaria, Lithuania, Spain, Slovakia and Sweden will be able, through the use of this platform after specialized training, to engage their members and stake-holders on multiple issues to get their feedback, both locally and at European level.

At a GlanceProject: MyUniversity - Decision making for a united higher

education

Project coordinator: GFI NV, BELGIUM

Participating partners: Gov2u (Greece), Scytl Secure Electronic Voting S.A.(Spain), Centre de Supercoputació de Catalunya (Spain), Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (Slovakia), Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain), Stockholm University (Sweden), University of Presov in Presov (Slovakia), Interna-tional Business School Bulgaria, University of National and World Economy (Bulgaria), University of León (Spain), Univer-sity of Vilnius (Lithuania), Slovak University of Technogy in

Bratislava (Slovakia).

Participating universities in the trials: Polytechnic University of Catalo-nia (Spain), Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), University of Barcelona (Spain), University of Girona (Spain), University of Lleida

(Spain)

Duration: 30 months

Total Cost: €2.30m

EU Contribution: €1.15m

Programme: �e Information and Communication TecnologiesPolicy Support Programme of the Competitiveness and Innova-

tion Framework Programme (CIP-ICT PSP-2009-3bis)

ICT PSP Programme website: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/ict_psp

Area: �eme 3: ICT for government and governance, Objective 3.5: e-Participation, empower and involve citizens in transparent

decision-making in the EU

Contract type: Pilot Type B

Project reference: 256216

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVESMyUniversity will increase the direct participation of university members and stakeholders in the higher education decision making process, by providing them with a centralized point where policy issues are sum-marized and clearly explained. �is information will allow university members and stakeholders to under-stand the impact of the policy and then use the interac-tive e-Participation tools to provide their contributionson the subject.

MyUniversity will create an advanced e-Participation platform that o�ers several di�erent interactive tools based on Web2.0 technology, allowing university members and stakeholders to easily participate in the policy-making process of the higher education area. �e platform will also leverage the success of social networks such as Facebook, by advertising its content on them in order to “hook” new users.

INNOVATIVE APPROACH �e project provides a new dimension that many other e-Participation projects lack and that is a transparent and seamless way of converting National/Regional level debates and interrelations to European level ones �e universities do not have to worry about hosting the platform and can dedicate all their e�orts to what is really important, e-Participation �e project has been conceived and directed at a speci�c environment where real participation can be fostered and take place

Project website: www.myuniversity-project.eu CONTACT INFORMATION

Project CoordinatorGFI NV, BELGIUM

Tel. +32(0)16 38 11 11 Fax. +32(0)16 38 11 00

E-mail: info.myuniversity@gfi.be

EXPECTED RESULTS• 9 different e-Participation tools available to the universities • At least 10 decision making processes per university a�ected by the collaborative input of members and stakeholders• An average of 50% of all the universities decision making process opened to members and stakeholders on the e-Participation platform for their contributionv• An average number of 12 e-Participation initiatives per university and year• An average number of 5 subjects being discussed per university and year• An average participation rate of 15% per process (compared to university population)• At least 5 cross-border participation processes created• 2 Bologna Working Group reports influ-enced either directly or indirectly• Extend the use of MyUniversity to 10 new universities as external trial users

CONSORTIUM�e Consortium has demonstrated experience in the delivery of e-Participation solutions and a diverse range of skills at its disposal, due to the fact that it is composed of a large IT corporation, an SME, an NGO with wide experience in e-Participation projects and individual universi-ties (the end-users of MyUniversity) arrayed across 7 di�erent EU member states.

Speci�c features of the system such as its security,privacy, inclusiveness, interoperability, and com-pliance to di�erent standards are serious concernswithin the project.

�e end-users universities will trial the platform during 20 months among all university stake-holders at both national/regional levels.

EU SUPER PORTAL

Universitye-Participation Portals

TECHNICAL SOLUTION�e project will develop, test and validate a plat-form that will be based on the integration and customization of two Web 2.0 Open Source tech-nologies (Demos@Work and Gov2DemoSS) and an optional cryptographic solution for secure e-consultations (Pnyx). All three existing platformshave been developed as part of extensive R&D projects and have been used in several settings. Twoof these platforms have been co-funded by the European Union and the third was funded privately. �e result of this customization and inte-gration will be a platform that can be installed and run on the same centralized severs and that is com-posed of a super portal and a portal for each of the end-user universities.

�e super EU level portal will include content fromall the university e-Participation portals in additionto its own independent Participation tools and willprovide links to these portals. �e super portal will be the main point of access for users, but the university e-Participation portals can also be accessed from their own independent URLs, so users that want to access their own university’s portal can do it without having to go through the super portal each time.

In addition to the participation initiated by the universities themselves, MyUniversity’s super EU level portal will also be o�ered to the Bologna Working Groups for launching studies and inter-acting with the spectrum of Higher Education stakeholders directly at an EU level.