Staff exchange – Karolinska Institutet

(By Mari Liljefors)

In March 2026, I participated in a two-day Erasmus+ job shadowing mobility visit at Vilnius University in Lithuania. The aim was to exchange experiences about education administration and digital systems and to compare practices between Vilnius University and KI.

Key Activities and Learnings

I met with the Erasmus coordinator at Vilnius University, Sigita Mėlynytė, and the Head of Study Administration, Egidijus Kinderis, to discuss administrative roles, learning platforms, admissions systems, scheduling, and course evaluation. At Vilnius University, there are no course administrators, but teachers manage their own courses, primarily using Moodle. The university uses a national admissions system similar to Ladok and plans to implement Oracle Campus Solution.

The university is introducing TimeEdit for scheduling and showed interest in KI’s approach to integrated it to the course in Canvas as schedules. Egidijus mostly interested in to use TimeEdit not only for each individual course schedule, but for controlling the total schedule of the university’s programme.  This is not how we use TimeEdit at KI and he said probably they will develop a system of their own. Unlike KI, teachers at Vilnius University are not required to write course analyses following student evaluations, although courses are reviewed every five years.

To improve student feedback, the university plans to make course evaluations mandatory starting next semester.

Selected Moments from the Visit

Photo 1: The Erasmus coordinator at Vilnius University outside of the Life Sciences Center (modern library in the background).

Photo 2: Me (Mari Liljefors) inside the Life Sciences Center, Vilnius University.

Baltic Sea Summer School Planning

On the second day, I attended planning meetings for the Baltic Sea Summer School 2026. Discussions focused on an innovative ‘Escape Room’ learning activity, which I found inspiring and relevant for my future course support work.

Overall Reflection

This staff mobility experience was highly valuable and rewarding. It provided new perspectives on education administration, practical ideas for system development, and a meaningful professional exchange with European colleagues.