The Austrian Higher Education Systems Network (AHESN) builds a foundation for making inter-university business processes and technical systems used for studies and teaching at Austrian educational institutions more transparent and flexible. The project promotes cooperation, harmonises structures, reduces the number of isolated applications, and standardises system connections. AHESN Next creates a digital infrastructure and promotes efficient administration and monitoring in higher education.

AHESN defines an open standard for data exchange and also enables bilateral cooperation to take place among all kinds of higher education institutions.

Open

The results of AHESN are available as inter-university open source artifacts. All components are developed collaboratively to support the open source movement.

360-degree view

AHESN takes a holistic approach towards the conceptual design of data exchange formats by involving all university stakeholders.

"A freely available, standardised way to exchange data in the education sector throughout Austria."

AHESN built the foundation for an open system that can be used at all higher education institutions to exchange information about achievements and recognitions. AHESN Next was designed to expand this system still further, enabling students to have technically equivalent examination results recognised.

With the student’s consent, the exam results stored at the original educational institutions can be accessed by the institutions evaluating this equivalence via the AHESN interface (applying the EU once-only principle). Thus, there is no need to submit transcripts or to check the authenticity of the documents. The positive or negative decisions are then documented in ways that allow similar applications for recognition are always treated in the same way (standardising the decision-making process, reducing search effort).

By standardising this process and providing digitally deliverable decision results, a standardised, end-to-end business process is established in accordance with the EGov-G (in German: E-Government-Gesetz).

The legal basis for these recognitions is described in UG § 78 (in German: Universitätsgesetz [Universities Act]); the procedure itself, in the General Administrative Procedure Act (in German: Allgemeine Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz); and the provision of the recognition, in the Service of Documents Act (in German: Zustellgesetz). As of 1.1.2020, the E-Government Act provides the right to electronically carry out administrative acts. This also takes into account the once-only principle enforced in EU Regulation 2018/1724 and in the request for recognition.

Generalisation and expansion of AHESN interfaces with regard to (bilateral) cooperative studies

In addition to the official collaborative (or joint) teacher training programmes, several bilateral programmes are offered throughout Austria based on the cooperation and shared curriculum. The NAWI Graz degree programmes or the Master's Degree Programme in Business Law offered jointly by the University of Vienna and University of Klagenfurt provide examples of these. There is no network identification in the key indicator system used for the degree programmes for these kinds of cooperations, which means that additional network and curricular management is required.

Collaboration and curricula management

To enable automated data processing between cooperating systems, meta-information is needed for the cooperating institutions and their curricula ("connective link" between the cooperating institutions) so that business processes can be carried out correctly.

1. Centrally available cooperation configuration:

Collaborative configurations between two and more educational institutions should be centrally available so that different systems can read and process them. This allows any number of collaborations to be defined and electronically processing without using a codex system.

1. Metadata for shared curricula:

The systems need to be able to interpret the written curricula that are shared. This involves electronically mapping the curricula. Although each of the software systems performs this mapping process in detail, the individual systems produce different maps due to a lack of structure. This makes electronic data processing in collaborations more complicated, because it is difficult to establish relationships between semantically identical items in the curricula. New metastructures should enable alignment with local modelling processes and thereby reduce differences between them.

Supportive functions

When joint degree programmes are offered, students register for a course or an examination at the respective educational institution.

The supportive functions offered by AHESN Next give students at all educational institutions more opportunities to organise their studies more easily, and to reduce the number of administrative tasks and thus the risk of error.

In its current version as a platform that supports joint studies, AHESN only helps data and information to be read by different educational institutions in a network. For this reason, AHESN would have to be extended so that processes can be changed throughout Austria and across system boundaries. For example, students should be able to register for a course at educational institution A by using the system available at educational institution B.

Project aim

"We want to create an open, standardised data exchange format that can be used in the education sector everywhere in Austria", this is the vision for the Austrian Higher Education Systems Network (AHESN) that was shared in 2015, directing a focus towards degree programmes and teaching.

AHESN was established "...to ensure the proper administration and implementation of joint degree programmes and jointly established degree programmes..." (Bildungsdokumentationsgesetz [Federal Act on Documentation in Education] § 7b, version published 7.06.2018).

AHESN is understood as an Austrian platform that supports the development and implementation of data exchange formats in degree programme and teaching areas at all higher education institutions. The results of AHESN are publicly documented on the website at https://ahesn.at.

Taking these considerations into account, the following two main topics will be addressed and defined as essential aims of the "AHESN Next" project:

1) Establishment of a "recognition platform" so that students can apply for recognition of the equivalence of examination results obtained in different subjects at different higher education institutions.

2) The main focus "Generalisation and extension of AHESN interfaces with regard to (bilateral) joint studies" affects how the abstraction and modelling of curricula and other metadata are performed, as well as how supporting functions are provided. This focus allows a jointly administered degree programme to be experienced by students as a unified degree programme and for the programme administration to run as smoothly possible at all participating institutions.

These two key topics are primarily related to "e-administration" and thus to the digitalisation of administration, but they also have a significant impact in the courses and for students. Complex, inter-institutional processes such as the recognition of exam results can be presented comprehensibly and consistently and dealt with quickly by applying the once-only principle.

The phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" could refers not only to the predecessor project AHESN, but also to the participating educational institutions: AHESN is co-developed and supported by the University of Innsbruck, University of Klagenfurt, University of Linz, TU Wien, University of Vienna, and by TU Graz. TU Graz provides CAMPUSonline as a system that can be used by a large number of partner universities and by all teacher training colleges. AHESN Next makes business processes and technical systems used for degree programmes and teaching at Austrian educational institutions more transparent and flexible, supports cooperation, harmonises structures, reduces the number of isolated applications, and standardises system connections.

Future innovations are promoted by the participation of several educational institutions in the sense of "open collaboration". AHESN Next plans to coordinate the cooperation projects "Digital Blueprint", "Austrian University Toolkit", and "Digital University Hub", all of which were developed by TU Graz, but emphasises the topics of degree programmes and teaching. AHESN Next plays a critical role in enabling the digital transformation within the Austrian higher education landscape and has been designed to promote and advance the transmission of data between systems.

Project plan and outlook

The work on the AHESN project was characterised by constructive cooperation, consensual discussions, actions to achieve results, and a strategic approach taken by all five cooperation partners. These values are also understood as forming the basis of a future cooperation with regard to organisation and technical implementation.

The governance model is based on the principles of the AHESN cooperation, but takes into account the involvement of the CAMPUSonline cooperation partners.

Graz University of Technology represents all tertiary educational institutions in Austria that operate CAMPUSonline. In addition, four representatives from CAMPUSonline cooperation partners will be included in the governance structure. The representatives will be nominated by the respective universities, medical universities, universities of the arts, and teacher training colleges.

Furthermore, AHESN Next plans to coordinate with the "Digital Blueprint" project run by TU Graz to develop joint monitoring structures and governance processes in the field of "e-administration". Technical and organisational questions can thus be addressed openly and inclusively, involving as many potential application organisations as possible, to avoid silo effects and overhead costs. This ensures the sustainability of the outcomes as well as their implementation and dissemination in the Austrian higher education landscape. The desired solution will be offered at universities as an "open source solution".

Technologies that are developed for future use, freely available standards, and successful frameworks from the open source area will be used and will not result in additional license fees.

The interface specifications are developed collaboratively and are based on results from the "AG Datenverbund" (a university working group at the Austrian Federal Computing Centre that works on data networks at universities and teacher training colleges). AHESN Next can be further extended based on the needs of the participating institutions ("open for collaboration") as well as regarding the interface definitions.

As part of taking an agile approach, it is important to produce usable results from the very beginning. This allows feedback to be received early on and to continuously generate added value. AHESN Next is designed to deliver usable results for users on an ongoing basis.

The project will be carried out on a year-by-year basis. At the end of each year, "shipable items" will be made available, ensuring the continuous use of parts of the system.