Professor Pézeril gave us a brief outline of her presentation and explained the current state regarding academic mobility in Europe. In the past ten years she has been working in the field of academic exchange in Europe and Maghreb region and has also been investigating how ICT (Information and communications technology) can better foster international mobility for institutions as well as individual students and scholars. In her presentation she talked about lessons learned in managing academic mobility and about the difficulties mobile students face when crossing borders to get into different institutions and adapt to another culture and different way of learning. “Everything is different in a new academic setting for them. They are like travelers without luggage,” she explained and continued that the student’s education back home is of little relevance and explained how they have to adjust quickly to the new intellectual world. That is why there is a need to consider how can the open education approach and learning technologies help them with adjusting and understanding and also help enrich the students and the community of the host institution with the diversity of their own experience, culture and learning models.

“I think the world will grow richer if this can be achieved, because we learn through our differences: we learn not only by doing things collectively but also by comparing and conflicting with others in different ways of doing and learning things. The learning experience can therefore be enriched with perspectives from a different culture, from different learning tradition,” said professor Pézeril.