ABOUT THE PRESENTATION

1. The World Web of Mevlana: A Web-Based Automation System for Academic Exchange Programs in the Context of Internationalization / 36 Zekeriya Aktürk, Abdullah Akyol, Hamit Acemoğlu. Atatürk University, Erzurum http://aile.atauni.edu.tr

2. ABOUT THE PRESENTATION / 36 • Internationalization • Introduction to WWM • Materials and Methods • Results • Cummunication with other systems • Generating Reports • Data Security • Exchange for 2013-2014 • Conclusion

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4. One School Advertisement:DePaul University • Exchange of ideas • Bringing new ideas • Need for being a global citizen • Cannot ignore outside world • A career that will benefit everybody on the planet • Everything is interconnected • We should not only accept, we should celebrate divesity • Internationalization transforms thinking / 36 http://www.depaul.edu/

5. USA http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/2007_hr/070629-vaughan.htm / 36 Almost 600,000 international students are enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions.

6. UK / 36 http://www.smuc.ac.uk/international/student-statistics.htm

7. Netherlands / 36 January 2010: 76,000 international students study in the Netherlands http://www.eurogates.nl/en_holland_news/id/7393/

8. Japan http://www.jasso.go.jp/statistics/intl_student/data07_e.html / 36 118,498 international students in Japan as of May 1, 2007 http://www.tut.ac.jp/english/admission/class.html

9. Turkey / 36 June 10, 2010: Around 17 000 foreign students http://www.zaman.com.tr/wap.do?method=getSondakikaDetay&haberno=994035&sirano=4&sayfa=

10. / 36 February 2012: Around 26 000 foreign students http://www.sabah.com.tr/Egitim/2012/02/22/turkiyede-yabanci-ogrenci-sayisi-artiyor

11. Internationalization is National Policy / 36 http://www.yok.gov.tr/web/guest/uluslararasilasma-toplantisi

12. / 36 Students from 31 countries applied to study medicine at Atatürk University.

13. Visiting Professors / 36

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19. INTERNATIONALIZATIONA Big Vision / 36 Internationalization is the result of a vision Academic staff from the Nebraska University came to Erzurum in 1962 and supported establishing Atatürk University Still appreciated! There are countries where YOU may contribute.

20. INTRODUCTION / 36 • The World is getting smaller each day • Inernationalization has become a priority • New academic exchange programs emerged • ERASMUS (1987) • Farabi (2008-2009) • Mevlana (2013-2014)

21. INTRODUCTIONMevlana Exchange Program (MEP) / 36 • Aim of MEP: • “Enabling academic exchange between Turkish and international universities worldwide” • Most important features: • No geographical boundary • Bugdet provided by Turkey

22. INTRODUCTIONThe Need / 36 • Academic exchange programs have to process a lot of actions: • Announcements Applications Learning protocols Acceptance letters Financial issues  ... • Doing all the procedures by hand has some limitations: • Time consuming, workforce requirement, open for mistakes...

23. MATERIALS AND METHODS / 36 • The project was supported by the Scientific Reaseach Projects funding unit (BAP) of Atatürk University • A system was developed to automate the following processes: • Determination and agreement of available exchange quota by coordinators from host and guest universities. • Making announcements via the World Wide Web. • Application of local and international students to the announced seats.

24. / 36 • Application of local and international academic staff to the announced seats. • Collection of Grade Point Average (GPA) and foreign language scores of students. • Matching and selection of students and academic staff eligible for exchange. • Preparation and transfer of acceptance letter for those who are accepted for exchange. • Matching of lectures and preparation of the learning protocols. • Collection of final reports of students and staff who successfully participated in the exchange. • Fast communication via mass e-mails and SMS • Production of different reports.

25. MATERIALS AND METHODS / 36 The automation system developed was named as The World Web of Mevlana

26. MATERIALS AND METHODS / 36 • The system was hosted at http://mevlana.atauni.edu.tr • Technical features: • main interface programming language: asp.net (C# .net) • database programming language: MSSQL • Additionally: Ajax technologies, Java script, Jquery, and CSS were implemented as necessary. • the software was developed based on a layered architecture.

27. RESULTSUser Levels / 36 • The WWM has eight levels of authorization: • System manager • Local coordinators • International coordinators • Local students • Local academic staff • International students • International staff • Guest users

28. RESULTSCommunicating with Other Systems / 36 Data related with the competencies, courses, curriculum content, and ECTS credits are automatically retrieved from the Course Information Package portal of the university http://eobs.atauni.edu.tr/Default.aspx

29. RESULTSCommunicating with Other Systems / 36 Student information including GPA is automatically retrieved from the Student Information System upon logging in with national Turkish ID. http://obs.atauni.edu.tr/auth

30. RESULTSGenerating Reports / 36 Students, academic staff and coordinators can generate reports as they need.

31. RESULTSData Security and Back-up / 36 The WWM is hosted in the servers of Atatürk University Security poicy and firewalls of the university apply also for WWM Regular backups are taken every week with more frequent ones during the high traffic periods.

32. RESULTSAdditional Information / 36 Added in Google-Maps Detailled visitor statistics http://www.webtemsilcisi.com/

33. RESULTSExchange Planned / 36

34. CONCLUSION / 36 The Mevlana Exchange Program automation system was successfully developed and implemented for the 2014-2015 exchange period. The system is working smoothly with mostly positive user feedbacks. Minor bugs encountered during operation are fixed instantly.   The need for being continually engaged in some form of learning activity will force the development for new educational settings and infrastructure removing the boundaries created by time and space.

35. CONCLUSION Gürbüz, T. Eğitimde Değişim: Bilgi Yönetimi ve e-öğrenme. Satı, Z. E., Karataş, E. K., Özen, Z., Koçoğlu, F. Ö., & Erol, Ç. “E-Üniversite” ye Yolculuk. / 36 As to our knowledge, the WWM is the first automation system for exchange programs in Turkey. Utilization of information technologies has been widely expanded during the recent years. Even governments started to accomplish many of their procedures through electronic government (e-government) systems, which will probably trigger the transformation of “university” to “e-university”.

36. CONCLUSION / 36 The World Web of Mevlana will facilitate the Mevlana Exchange Program procedures for all stakeholders, including Mevlana Exchange Office workers, local and international coordinators, sudents, and academic staff. It will also help to promote the Mevlana Exchange Program by enabling fast access to all resources via the internet . Using the experience accumulated at Atatürk University, we expect other institutions to implement the WWM for their universities. Since the processes are fairly similar, the system can be applied to other exchange programs such as ERASMUS and Farabi too with some modifications.