The ECTS is a recognised standard developed to promote student mobility and cultural exchange within Europe. The standard permits the comparison of credit systems adopted by universities and higher education institutions in the European Union to design and implement students’ curricula. Thanks to this system, students who have studied for a period in an EU country can have their learning activities and grades recognised by other foreign universities complying with the standard.
The ECTS system is based on the following instruments:
- ECTS credits, a numeric value which represents the workload students must complete to pass each course unit;
- The Course Catalogue, which provides useful information addressed to academic students and staff about the universities, the Schools/Departments, the internal organisation and the degree programme structure, as well as about the course units;
- The Transcript of Records, which presents students’ academic results in a clear, complete and easy-to-understand manner in order to transfer the learning outcomes achieved into another university's accreditation system;
- The Learning Agreement, which describes the student's curriculum and indicates the ECTS credits assigned to the student upon completion/attendance of the learning activities (exams, tests, grades, etc.).