During the mobility

 

3.1 Upon arrival at the host institution - Arrival Certificate
Please get your start date confirmed (signed AND stamped) at the international office of your host institution or with the departmental coordinator there within the first weeks of your stay and upload the scan into your participant's account. The Confirmation of Period of Study is provided in your participant's account once the Grant Agreement has been ckecked as correct there. At the end of your study period please do not forget to get the end date confirmed in this confirmation document as well. Without this proof of your actual mobility dates we would have to make you pay back the ERASMUS grant.
If you attended a preparatory language course in the host country, the start date of this course can be registered in your participant's account instead of the start date of your studies. Information concerning the upload of language course certificates can be found here.

 

 3.2 Changes to Original Learning Agreement?
The ERASMUS program call for a written agreement between the two partner institutions and the student concerning the study program of the ERASMUS participant. The Learning Agreement/Proposed Study Programme is a binding contract and one of the basic documents for your participation in the program and later on the recognition of the ERASMUS credits. It is your official study plan end lists the courses you will study at the host institution.
If changes have to be made at the start of your ERASMUS study period, please use the template Changes to Original Learning Agreement provided in your participant's account, collect all signatures and upload the scanned document. The same is necessary in case of an extension of the ERASMUS period for a module or semester.
According to the ERASMUS Plus guidelines the Changes to Original Learning Agreement has to be signed by all three parties within four weeks of the start of your studies: Your signature, the signature of your departmental coordinator at Goethe-University and the responsible person at the host institution. The signature of the International Office of GU is no longer necessary. Please make sure to upload the document into your participant's account shortly after its completion. The IO of GU will then check if it is formally correct and in case it is not, you will receive an email and have to make the necessary correction before uploading it again.
For counsel with regard to the possible recognition of ERASMUS credits please contact your departmental coordinator and if necessary also your examination office. Unauthorized changes in your study program may most certainly preclude recognition of credits and may even lead to a complete backpayment of the ERASMUS grant. Be advised to chose courses with a workload of 30 ECTS credits per semester and to attend regularly and continuously. According to the EU Commission these 30 ECTS mark the standard semester workload of a home student. As an ERASMUS participant of GU you do not need to take and successfully complete 30 ECTS, but we strongly suggest you do since ERASMUS is an academic exchange program after all. 
In the courses chosen for studies all mandatory performances have to be undertaken, be it the signing of attendance lists, home work, reading assignments, class room presentations, tests and if the teacher requires you to sit for the end term examinations, you have to do that, too. You do not necessarily have to pass these exams successfully if you do not seek recognition of credits at GU. In case you fail examinations you parttake in, this does not lead to a backpayment of the ERASMUS grant. If you seek recognition of credits for a course, naturally you have to successfully complete the course.

Notice: Please do not forget that you are an ambassador of Goethe-University and Germany, so please encourage the home students at your host institution to think about an ERASMUS semester at Goethe-University or in Germany. The exchange mobility numbers need to be balanced in order to keep the partnerships alive and to be able to send students to the partner universities.

  


3.3 Changes in your bank account or contact details
Please make sure to keep your personal details up to date in order to not cause any delays in the outpayment of your grant and other matters. In case of changes in your bank account, email or other personal details, please fill in the new details into your participant's account in the step where you originally filled in the details at the time of your original online application at GU.  

 


3.4 Language Courses
If you have completed a preparatory or semester long language courses successfully, please upload the course certificate into your participant's account. If course fees applied, please include the payment slip in that pdf-file. For the reimbursement of language course fees only limited funds are available in ERASMUS. We reimburse the actual course fee for maximum 2 language courses up to a maximum amount of 250€ in total per ERASMUS participant in 2015/16 and only 100€ in total in 2016/17. Participants in language courses prior and during the winter semester have to upload their course certificates until February 15 and receive the money in March. Participants in language courses prior and during the summer semester upload their course certificates until August 01 and receive the money in September. If you miss the winter deadline, you will be included in the summer outpayment. If you miss the August deadline, you will not be reimbursed for the language course fees.
If your host institution allocates ECTS credits to the language courses, these can be included in the 30 ECTS credits per semester.

 

 3.5 Extension of ERASMUS period
If it becomes clear to you that the duration of your mobility will extend beyond the planned end date by reason of your study program, you have to apply for an extension of the mobility period and for additional funding at least one month before that originally planned end date. This you do in your participant's account and applies to minimal extensions from a couple of days to a couple of weeks to extensions by a module or full semester. The extension period of one additional semester, only possible from winter to summer semester, can be supported by four more monthly rates. if we have sufficient funds available. If you don't apply in due time, you still might extend your stay and receive a tuition waiver, but the extension will be valued as zero grant days which means no financial support. Minimal extensions from a couple of days to a couple of weeks have to be registered by us, but will not be funded.

Since we are obliged to record the exact duration of your ERASMUS period from actual start date to actual end date, we will do this once you have uploaded your Confirmation of Period of Study. If this shows the duration to be shorter than 4 months (120 days) per semester or 8 months (240 days) per academic year, we are obliged to request a backpayment from you for the difference in days. Mostly though a reduction in the outstanding second outpayment suffices to cover the difference.

A minimal extension usually does not require permission by the departmental coordinator or the host institution. Please pay attention when marking the correct field in your participant's account. For extensions for a module or semester, trimester or placement/internship at the host institution please mark this accordingly in the participant's account. Then talk to the responsible person at the host university and your departmental coordinator at GU, because these two have to give written permission by email to outgoing@uni-frankfurt.de that the extension is granted within the ERASMUS program. Only after receiving these emails your application for extension can be processed in the participant's account. You will then be provided with a Changes to Original Learning Agreement form for the extension period in your participant's account. Additionally in all cases of extension an updated Grant Agreement will be provided. Please complete and upload these into your account in due time.

Please notice: An extension period has to immediately follow the current mobility period. Extensions past the summer semester cannot be permitted, because the fiscal administration of ERASMUS at Goethe University is done by academic years. For officially confirmed additional examination periods or studies an extension can be granted until the end of the official ERASMUS period, September 30. Maximum duration is 12 months per regular study cycle though; for students in the traditional study programs Diplom, Magister and Staatsexamen (state examination) up to 24 months.

An extension by a second semester after the summer semester into the winter semester of the following academic year is possible only by submission of a new application for the new ERASMUS study period with your departmental coordinator, who has to decide if another placement in the program is possible. Please contact him/her as early as possible.

If funds are available for all extensions that reach the IO in due time cannot be determined at this point, but is a case-by-case decision depending on the number of cancellations, terminations and shortenings of ERASMUS mobilities. If the funds available are not sufficient, you may still extend your ERASMUS study period under the tuition waiver, but the extension will be valued as zero grant days which means no financial support. 

 

 3.6 Cancellation or termination or shortening of ERASMUS period
If you have to cancel your ERASMUS participation please notify your departmental coordinator AND Mr. Purkert at the International Office at outgoing@uni-frankfurt.de immediately. The same goes for terminations and shortenings of the mobility, that is if you reduce the actual duration below the planned duration, also in case you reduce a mobility planned for two semesters down to one semester only. Mr. Purkert will contact you concerning the backpayment of the grant. If the duration of your ERASMUS mobility drops below 3 monts (90 days), you have to pay back the grant in full, since this is the minimum duration in the ERASMUS program. If the duration is 90 days or more, you will have to pay back a partial sum of the grant. If the duration drops below 4 months or 8 months (see above) the outstanding outpayment will be reduced accordingly.

In case you encounter problems during the ERASMUS stay, that make it impossible for you to continue your studies in an orderly way, please contact your departmental coordinator and Mr. Purkert at the IO at outgoing@uni-frankfurt.de. This can be an accident, health and mental problems, financial problems. Then it has to be decided whether the continuation of the mobility is possible and reasonable under the circumstances. 

  

3.7 At the end of your stay - Confirmation of Period of Study
At the end of your study period please do not forget to get the end date confirmed in the Confirmation of Period of Study - signed AND stamped at the international office of your host institution or with the departmental coordinator. Without this proof of your actual mobility dates we would have to make you pay back the ERASMUS grant. The Confirmation of Period of Study had been provided in your participant's account at the start of your mobility. In case you lost the document you can download it again in the same step as before.

Also please inquire about the modalities concerning your official Transcript of Records from the host institution. Usually this is provided as an email attachment or is is being sent by mail to you, your departmental coordinator at GU or us at the International Office. In case we receive it, we will notify you by email so you can pick it up or we can forward it to you. Please upload a scan of your transcript into your participant's account. You will also need this document for the recognition of your ERASMUS credits at GU.