Use Case "Application to Public Higher Education" (SA UC1)

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Use Case "Application to Public Higher Education" of the Studying Abroad Pilot (SA UC1) focuses on the procedure of applying for admission to public higher education institutions. This procedure corresponds to the "Submitting an initial application for admission to public tertiary education institution" procedure from Annex II of the SDGR. Portugal, Slovenia and Spain are involved in this use case.

Pilot scenarios

UC1 - Portugal

This pilot scenario covers submission of applications to study at the 1st (Bachelor degree studies) or 2nd Bologna level (Master’s degree studies) at University of Lisbon in Portugal. Spanish students can apply to both levels, while Slovenian students are only able to apply to Master's studies. Similar to the other scenarios, the applicants’ evidence (higher education diploma or a proof of completion of secondary education) is retrieved from the trusted data providers in Portugal and Slovenia through the DE4A OOP TS. The Slovenian and Spanish students authenticate at University of Lisbon with their eIDAS eIDs, they explicitly request to use the DE4A OOTS to retrieve the required evidence from their home countries, and are then redirected to the evidence issuing competent authority where they Preview the evidence before being redirected back to the requesting competent authority in Portugal.

UC1 - Slovenia

All candidates wishing to enrol in the Slovenian higher education system must apply online through the eVŠ system at the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. This scenario pilots the submission of applications for studies at the 1st (Bachelor degree studies) or 2nd Bologna level (Master’s degree) in Slovenia. Spanish students can apply to both levels, while Portugues students are only able to apply to Master's studies. Currently, students have to manually enter the required data in the application form at eVŠ and provide the required evidence themselves. In the pilot, the information on the applicants’ evidence (higher education diploma or a proof of completion of secondary education) is retrieved from the trusted data providers in Portugal and Spain through the automated exchange mechanisms enabled by the DE4A OOP TS. The Spanish and Portuguese students authenticate at the eVŠ system with their eIDAS eIDs, they explicitly request to use the DE4A OOTS to retrieve the required evidence from their home countries and are then redirected to the evidence issuing competent authority where they Preview the evidence before being redirected back to the requesting competent authority in Slovenia.

UC1 - Spain

This pilot scenario involves the submission of applications to study at the 2nd Bologna level (Master’s degree) at Universitat Jaume I (UJI) in Spain by Portuguese and Slovenian students. Similar to the other scenarios, the information about the applicants’ diploma is retrieved from the trusted data providers in Portugal and Slovenia through the DE4A OOP TS. The Slovenian and Portuguese students authenticate at UJI with their eIDAS eIDs, they explicitly request to use the DE4A OOTS to retrieve the required evidence from their home countries and are then redirected to the evidence issuing competent authority where they will Preview the evidence before being redirected back to the requesting competent authority in Spain.

Implementation

Interaction pattern

This UC uses the User-supported Intermediation Pattern.

Components

Data models

Higher education diploma

Secondary education diploma

Process

Here, the main steps of the process are briefly summarised:

A student accesses an eProcedure portal of a Data Consumer (DC) to apply for higher education studies.
The student is asked to authenticate at the DC using a legally recognized electronic identity (eIDAS identity).
After successful authentication, the student is presented with a list of study programmes. The student selects the desired programme.
The student is asked to provide evidence (higher education diploma or a proof of completion of secondary education), which is mandatory for the application.
The student explicitly requests that the DE4A Once-only Principle Technical System is used to retrieve the evidence from a Data Provider (DP) in his/her home country.
DC sends through the DE4A Once-only Principle Technical Systema request to the DP that has the student's evidence and directs the student to DP's Evidence portal.
The student authenticates at the DP.
The DP matches the student's identity with his/her record, retrieves the students's evidence from a registry, transforms it into a canonical format according to the SA UC1 data model, and shows it to the student.
The student previews the evidence and gives consent for sending it to the DC.
The DP transmits the evidence to the DC through the Once-only Principle Technical System and redirects the students back to the DC.
The DC transforms the evidence from canonical format to local format and pre-fills an application form with the evidence attributes.
The student enters missing information that cannot be obtained from the DP, e.g. email address, contact phone number, address for notice, in the form and submits the application.
DC validates the application and acknowledges receipt.

Legal status


Use case Application to public higher education
Data provider country		Data evaluator country
Member State name	Status in this use case	Member State name	Status in this use case
Portugal	Issuing real or fake data for the students with national or test eID	Portugal	Real or fake data. Received data is used for piloting only.
Slovenia	Issuing real data for the preselected students with national eID	Slovenia	Real or fake data. Received data is used for piloting only.
Spain	Issuing real (anonymized) data for the students with national eID and fake data for the students without national eID.	Spain	Real or fake data. Received data is used for piloting only.
Identified risks / problems / incidents		Implemented solutions or plan (note: use the same line as the risk/problem/incident, so that the solution/plan matches the risk/problem/incident next to it)
[Member State(s) name(s)]	Describe: dd/mm/yyyy, [description of the risk/problem/incident	Describe: dd/mm/yyyy, [description of the solution or plan]

Additional notes:

[Provide any additional information that's required to describe the status of the use case, if applicable.]

Pilot risk status


Risk level	Tick if this level applies (tick only one)	Comments (if any)
Low
Medium	X
High

Measures taken


Measure description	Tick if this measure was taken	Description or comments (if any)
Piloting partners will communicate proactively towards each other on issues or incidents (always mandatory)	x	Will be done when issues arise, which is not yet the case.
Any real-life pilot participants (if applicable) are informed of the fact that they are involved in piloting activities, including any risks and countermeasures taken, and the (lack of) legal effects and consequences of participation. Appropriate documentation should be retained to demonstrate that this information has been provided. (mandatory for medium and high)	x	Students are informed about involvement in piloting activities at the Explicit request step, i.e. before requesting their data to be retireved from a competent authority in their home country.
If the piloting involves real-life persons, piloting should be organised under the supervision of a DPO. (mandatory for medium and high)	x	Hans Graux
If the piloting would be done on a production environment, all pilot partners should notify any operators of such environments in advance. Appropriate measures should be taken that piloting activities do not result in negative legal or practical consequences for any real-life persons, real life data, or production environments. The production environments should be cleaned if the piloting activity was not intended to have long term legal or practical consequences. (mandatory for medium and high)	x	Operators are informed and attend pilot run sessions. The UJI portal allows for submitting application to higher education, but without any legal or practical consequences for the students (call for studies are either test calls or the students do not finish completely their procedures).
All piloting activities should be monitored by pilot partners (each solely in relation to such components of the piloting activities which are under their responsibility) in a manner that allows any incidents to be detected and remedied (including by contacting any affected real-life persons where needed). (mandatory for medium and high)	x	Piloting activities are monitored by pilot partners.
The DE4A project DPO (Hans Graux) should be informed prior to initiating piloting activity, and of any incidents that are reasonably likely to create legal effects or practical impacts on any real-life persons (mandatory for high)	x	This wiki informs the DPO.
Implementation of a pilot monitoring and remediation strategy to assess whether exchanged evidences are reasonably capable of satisfying the requirements for high risk piloting documented in the deliverables, and to ensure that any errors in the piloting activity can be detected and remediated in a manner that eliminates any negative legal or practical consequences. (mandatory for high)	x	Piloting activities are monitored by pilot partners.