Thesis
Unibridge
Creating a bridge for universities to connect students and members of the academic institutions to build a seamless education experience in the European Higher Education Area.
Kicking off the Bologna Process in 1999 and introducing a higher education area with comparable degrees and goals like increased student's mobility was a revolution of the academic life in Europe.
With those goals, the administration of a university became more complicated and intensive. By creating new digital touchpoints and full-service solutions like intranets, academic institutions are trying to facilitate this transformation. Unibridge is a Bachelor Thesis project giving an outlook, how Europe's universities could connect and achieve their goals given by the EHEA.
- InstitutionUniversity of Europe (BTK)
- Study ProgramCommunication Design (B.A.)
- ProjectBachelor Thesis
- Time3 months
- SupervisorsVolker Pook & Mirjam Goller
- Websitewww.unibridge.io
Problem
Based on research with universities of Berlin and analyzing the different objectives of the Bologna Process' governmental meetings, I discovered that there is a gap between the expectations and the local implementations. Many institutions and sectors are struggling with high-level standards and their realization. To understand the problems and the challenges of academic institutions, I chose different approaches to raise information and generate data.
Most dissatisfaction is raised by the new challenges universities are dealing with. The rising number of incoming and outgoing students and its respective consequences for recognition of academic achievements are adding much bureaucracy to their administrations. The different layers for decisions of education standards are complicating the processing of new rules, and educational institutions often feel left alone.
Because education standards in Europe are still not fully adapted, one common problem is based on difficult communication to solve those differences. Universities are often assigning tasks back to students that they have to clarify questions of their home university or their exchange institution.
Unibridge is a concept study that takes care of the gap of communication and non-aligned standards between different institutions in the whole of Europe. Bringing academic life together and focusing on the most decisive player of the journey: the student.
Interview Summary
Workshop With Students
People & Audience
Tackle a problem that you know very well. In this case, I experienced problems with student's mobility in the same university, moving from one campus to the other. So being a student helped me a lot to understand the problems and needs.
To bring a much broader view of the stage and validate insights against the real target group, I started to interview and talk to fellow students. What did they experience in the last semesters? How satisfied are they with our digital infrastructure? How would they rate the work of the administration, and do they feel the consequences of the Bologna Process?
Unibridge focuses on the daily users of the digital campus. Especially students. Adding professors and members of the academic institutions to that dialogue helped me a lot to understand what decision takers are supporting and how all stakeholders can be united to a more seamless solution.
Around Students
Design Process
Designing Unibridge was an overwhelming experience. To work on a solution for future academic interaction and to possibly help the students who could learn one day without any border.
The diversity of the educational spaces, the different study programs, and a multicultural movement motivated me to create an adaptive brand that thrives for flexibility and would not dictate any identity.
Software & Web
Adaptive Design for Countries
Iterate & Improve User Flows
Time for life, time for you and time for study, but no time for bureaucracy. European, Trendsetting, Simply, and Boundless.
