Benefits for students with eduXchange
Rapid enrolment in minor programmes
Three universities offering two hundred minor programmes: thanks to a pilot with eduXchange, the whole has become greater than the sum of its parts. Marja Verstelle and Iteke de Jong explain how this pilot within the LDE alliance ran and what it has delivered. They also share advice for other institutions, as everyone will soon be getting started with eduXchange.
Key facts
Who: Marja Verstelle en Iteke de Jong
Functon: initiator of educational collaboration within the alliance, and policy officer and minor programme coordinator
Organisation: Leiden–Delft–Erasmus Universities (LDE) and Erasmus University Rotterdam
Service: eduXchange (pilot)
Challenge: encouraging students to take minor programmes at other institutions
Solution: eduXchange connects the student information systems (SIS) and presents students with a shared minor catalogue, allowing them to enrol immediately.
It is a match made in heaven: Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam (LDE) are three neighbouring institutions that complement each other perfectly in terms of academic disciplines and ethos. This offers great opportunities for education, says Marja Verstelle, who coordinates the educational projects of this LDE alliance.
Marja Verstelle
“If you get an engineer from Delft, a business student from Rotterdam and a philosopher from Leiden to work together on a minor project, they can learn a great deal from one another. It’s also excellent preparation for working life, where people collaborate in mixed teams.”
But how do you organise that as an alliance? Students need to know what sort of minor programmes are available outside their own institution, what they entail and how to enrol. The administrative departments used to circulate Excel spreadsheets containing sensitive personal data. Not only is this time-consuming and undesirable for privacy reasons, but it also led to errors.
Linking systems together
A solution presented itself. Another alliance of higher education institutions, EWUU, uses eduXchange to offer optional modules. This service, provided by SURF, links the systems of multiple institutions together. This gives students a complete overview of the courses on offer and allows them to enrol straight away.
Iteke de Jong
“But minors are a different matter altogether,” says Iteke de Jong, policy officer and minor coordinator at Erasmus University Rotterdam. “Our biggest challenge was to organise the exchange of information effectively within the student information systems (SIS). You’re not only dealing with different areas of expertise across the three institutions, but also with the suppliers of the various SISs. Fortunately, we received help from SURF during the pilot.”
Marja explains: “We discussed how our processes worked. SURF put forward technical proposals that also took into account issues such as Privacy by Design. It was good that, on SURF’s initiative, we also brought in a technical project manager, as they were able to speak directly with the suppliers.”
Fundamental choices
Another useful aspect was: “At LDE, many people in senior positions were assigned to the pilot, because you can’t set up a project like this using conventional project management methods. We worked in design cycles, with people who had a broad overview, remained in constant consultation with one another and ensured everything was tested in good time. And we trusted one another. That worked very well.”
Fundamental decisions also had to be made. For example, within LDE, a student can only enrol in one minor at a time. Otherwise, the automation would not have been possible. When it came to decisions like these, it helped that the rectors were behind the plan from the very start.
“I’ve noticed when I’m abroad that we’ve come up with innovative solutions that others are often still searching for”
Quick and innovative
Thanks to eduXchange, students can now enrol in a flash. Iteke: “The Student Information Systems (SIS) check the details. Are you eligible? Do we still have places available? And then you see straight away: you’re enrolled. There’s no need to seek permission from the faculty. Everything is based on the admissions matrix that the three institutions have agreed in advance.” This also saves the administrative departments a lot of manual adjustments. No wonder, then, that the innovation has been well received at all levels.
Marja: “What appealed to us right from the start was that this would make us pioneers. What SURF came up with was innovative. I notice it abroad too: we’ve implemented solutions that others are often still searching for.”
“Make sure you assign people to the project who know their way around your organisation. Because you need to be able to adapt quickly”
Advice for institutions
The plan is for eduXchange to be incorporated into SURF’s service portfolio from September 2026, thereby making it available to all institutions that wish to use this platform to open up their course and minor programmes to students from other institutions. It will therefore also form part of the roll-out of the new national sector-wide service for Register, enrol, sign up (AII in Dutch).
What advice do Marja and Iteke have for institutions that are not yet using eduXchange? Iteke: “Make sure you assign people to the project who know their way around your organisation. Because you need to be able to react quickly.” Marja adds: “I often notice that when it comes to increasing flexibility, people tend to think mainly within their own institution. With AII, you’ll soon be able to go much further. But you do need to put a strategic policy in place for that. If you’re already collaborating with certain other institutions, then eduXchange will offer added value.”
“If you’re already collaborating with certain other institutions, then eduXchange will offer added value”
The challenge of providing guidance on course choices
EduXchange is working well at the moment, but development continues. In particular, a great deal of work is being done on providing feedback on results from the host institution to the student’s home institution.
Finally, every success also leads to new challenges, as Marja explains. “We now have an integrated catalogue where students can search for specific programmes, but with just three institutions, it already lists 200 minors. What do students base their choices on? According to previous research, it’s senior students, parents and videos. I’d bet that half of them are already using ChatGPT as well. With our own AI, we can provide effective guidance throughout their decision-making process.”