## 3 Methodology  
As shown in the diagram of Figure 1, the starting point for our study was the acquisition of numerical information about paper wastage, workload and time invested in managing mobility processes during the academic years before the adoption of digital processes. Specifically, the staff of the International Relationships Offices of the four HEIs in the SUDTE consortium (SU--Selcuk University; IZTECH--Izmir Institute of Technology; UVIGO--University of Vigo; UNINA--University of Naples Federico II) were asked to provide the following data:  
* The Average Numbers of Beneficiaries (ANB) of the four types of Erasmus+ mobilities: SMS (Student Mobility for Studies), SMP (Student Mobility for Placement), STA (Staff Mobility for Teaching Assignment), and STT (Staff Mobility for Training). \(\bigcirc\) This input yielded four variables for each HEI: ANB_SMS, ANB_SMP, ANB_STA, and ANB_STT. * The Number of Printed Pages (NPP) used for each one of the documents required by each type of mobility (see Table 1), which would rely on templates provided by the EU or models created by each HEI. \(\bigcirc\) This input yielded 59 variables for each HEI, corresponding to the 59 types of documents listed in Table 1 (those in the rows of STA and STT are counted twice): NPP_GA_SMS for the Grant Agreements of SMS mobilities, NPP_LA_SMS for the Learning Agreements, etc. * The Number of IRO Staff Members (NSM), their Yearly Hours of Work (YHW) per person, the Percentage of the yearly hours taken by SMS/SMP/STA/STT PaperWork (PMPW), the 'M' meaning'mobilities', and the Percentage taken by Other PaperWork (POPW), such as intersititutional agreements, visa letters, passport letters, and internal communications. Figure 1: Methodological steps followed in the study. From the initial data gathered from the IROs, the Average Processing Times (APT) taken by each type of document were calculated for the different types of mobility (second \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c} \hline \hline
**Mobility Types** & **Documents** \\ \hline SMS (Student Mobility for Studies) & \\ \(\bullet\) & Grant agreement \\ \(\bullet\) & Learning agreement/work programme \\ \(\bullet\) & Outgoing application form \\ \(\bullet\) & Acceptance form \\ \(\bullet\) & Certificate of arrival \\ \(\bullet\) & Departure certificate \\ \(\bullet\) & Transcript of records \\ \(\bullet\) & Bank details form \\ \(\bullet\) & Social security/tax declaration \\ \(\bullet\) & Letter of acceptance to entrants \\ \(\bullet\) & Copy of incoming ID/passport \\ \(\bullet\) & Copy of incoming insurance \\ \(\bullet\) & University nomination \\ \(\bullet\) & Incoming application form \\ \(\bullet\) & **Course recognition sheet** \\ \(\bullet\) & **Document for visa** \\ \(\bullet\) & **Course recognition confirmation** \\ \(\bullet\) & **Transcripts** \\ \(\bullet\) & **Student mobility survey** \\ \(\bullet\) & **OLS results** \\ \(\bullet\) & **Incoming learning agreement** \\ \(\bullet\) & **Incoming final transcript** \\ \hline SMP (Student Mobility for Placement) & \\ \(\bullet\) & Grant agreement \\ \(\bullet\) & Work programme \\ \(\bullet\) & Outgoing application form \\ \(\bullet\) & Acceptance form \\ \(\bullet\) & Certificate of arrival \\ \(\bullet\) & Departure certificate \\ \(\bullet\) & Bank details form \\ \(\bullet\) & Social security/tax declaration \\ \(\bullet\) & Copy of incoming ID/passport \\ \(\bullet\) & Copy of incoming insurance \\ \(\bullet\) & Incoming application form \\ \(\bullet\) & **Copy of outgoing ID/passport** \\ \(\bullet\) & **Grant payment to outgoing students** \\ \(\bullet\) & **Document for visa** \\ \(\bullet\) & **Academic recognition document** \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Documents counted for the four types of mobilities (**bold** documents are used by some institutions only). stage of Figure 1), yielding 59 figures for each HEI from the inputs gathered in the first stage: APT_SMS_GA for SMS Grant Agreements, APT_SMS_LA for SMS Learning Agreements, etc.