# Education Mobility as a Service: A Study of the Features of a Novel Mobility Platform
###### Abstract  
The European Union's Erasmus+ program strongly supports mobility for finding training or work opportunities. However, in the era of pandemics, there is a need to find remedies for restricted movement. One solution is to create a platform for collaboration in the spheres of work and training. This article aims to identify the crucial factors for the development of a novel ecosystem for the European education mobility. This mixed-method study employed interviews with 140 respondents. The authors utilized the NVivo software, specifically its Word Frequency Query functionality, to identify relevant features in the four main categories: competence acquisition, pedagogy, organization, and technology. Findings suggest that the acquisition of competencies should be oriented towards the future labor market, students prefer gamified activities, the platform should be organized to allow for easy job and training searches, and 2D and 3D solutions should be combined for versatility. Overall, future-oriented content, motivation, and technologically diverse activities are positively perceived by students and can be seen as a major trend in creating similar tools. This type of user experience research could also be extended to a group of teachers and administrative personnel engaged in education mobility as service activities. This research was conducted as part of the ERASMUS+ project eMediator. platform for collaboration; education mobility; competence-based education +
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of virtual mobility is gaining traction globally, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies in education and highlighted the importance of ensuring learners' access to education in times of crisis. At the same time, it is difficult to find a tool that would overcome traveling barriers and combine many purposeful functions. There are many free or paid applications and websites on the market, but they are not strictly dedicated to such needs. Of course, it is possible to adopt specific functionalities, but often these are intermediate solutions and do not always meet all expectations of users. For this reason, new tools for education and mobility with dedicated features based on state-of-the-art solutions should be developed. Thinking about the niche initiated the project called Ecosystem for European Education Mobility as a Service: Model with Portal Demo abbreviated as eMediator [1]. The project, led by the Transport and Telecommunication Institute in Riga, Latvia, started in 2021 and is being implemented by the University of Lodz, Poland, University of Ioannina, Greece, University of Murcia, Spain, Aalen University, Germany, within the Erasmus+ program (KA220-HED--Cooperation partnerships in higher education). This project will create an ecosystem model based on the principles of competency-based, service-based, student-centered education and business-academia partnerships. As part of the endeavor, a model and prototype of a cloud-based unified digital platform for organized mobile education services will be developed. The expected outcomes of the project include the following:  
* Providing education mobility services during study at university and lifelong learning to meet the individual educational needs of students, lecturers, and employees of businesses. * Fostering career development of lecturers in accordance with their own values and regardless of the mission and vision of academic institutions. * Allowing lecturers to develop their professional competencies in another European context when their current context does not allow them to do so. * Offering educational and employment opportunities through a competency-based higher education model. Regarding the expected outcomes, the key issue concerns types of technologies and functionalities which should be present in the dedicated solution. This article aimed to introduce the research path to elicit dedicated features for the mobility platform prototype.