Internationalization
Internationalization is an important element in higher education. Sør-Trøndelag University College co-operates with a number of foreign universities and university colleges, and has established agreements on student exchange and postgraduate studies abroad. In general, those who travel abroad will have a positive social, cultural and academic experience, which will become useful for them. We have a significant number of agreements with university colleges in the Nordic region through Nordplus agreements, managed by the Nordic Council; and agreements with university colleges in for instance Germany, the Netherlands, France, England and Greece through Socrates/Eramus agreements, administered by the European Union based on the European Economic Co-operation agreement.

Student mobility and teaching staff exchange at the AITeL
An increasing number of our students complete a part of their degree abroad. Many do also study for a Master's degree. Currently 10 of our students study abroad, and there are 5 foreign students at the Faculty of Informatics and e-Learning (AITeL). Three foreign students have completed their Major Assignment at our faculty: Christoph Stengel (from Fachhoch schoole, Berlin), Elco Middelburg (from Groningen, the Netherlands) and Stamatia Kakoytsi (from Thessaloniki, Greece).

Christoph (Berlin) left, Elco (Groningen) and Stamatia (Thessaloniki).		Olav in his office in Newcastle, Australia.

Internationalization is very important for AITeL, and the faculty assists students and employees who wish to study or work abroad. When Sør-Trøndelag University College completed a co-operation agreement with the University of Newcastle, Mr. Olav Skundberg decided to travel to Australia together with his family. During his one year sabbatical in 2002 he will do research on speech recognition. When he has finished his sabbatical year speech recognition technology will be established as a course at AITeL.

The faculty's student exchange agreements are highly valued by the academic staff at AITeL. Through contact with exchange students at AITeL and their supervisors our employees get to know which courses are taught at foreign universities, the curriculum and how they teach the courses. We do also seek to develop commonly accepted courses in co-operation with other foreign universities and university colleges, so that the students do not "loose time" while studying at another academic institution.

Some of our Dutch exchange students, through the Erasmus programme:

Gerard Biemolt	Martijn Riemersma	Sven Erhardt, practice period	Hyls Hidderna, Major Assignment	Hans Hijikerna, practical period	Anton Pitstra, Major Assignment	Phuong Pedersen Denmark

See Exchange students for more exchange students

Internationalization in co-operation with local businesses
Peter Fargas is a quota student from Bratislava, in Slovakia. This East-European country will most likely soon be a member of the European Union. Consequently, such co-operation as is established with the University of Bratislava,  is important both for the faculty and for local companies, which would like to get access to the Slovakian market. 

Peter Fargas, quota student 2002-2004