One Number Tells It All

Poitiers, July 2006 - The Contact centre of the French national centre for distance education (Cned) has developed a single-phone-number service for the benefit of the partners within the EduContact project. It will advise students worldwide by answering their phone calls to +33 5 49 49 98 98 as well as e-mails in French, English, German, and Spanish.

EduContact is a three-year project selected by the European Commission's Erasmus Mundus program. Its main objective is to enhance the global promotion and accessibility of European distance higher education by providing personalized counselling on a selection of courses from participating European universities. EduContact advisors answer direct calls and e-mails and advise students in English, French, German, or Spanish on the courses made available by partner universities for their European interest.

If necessary, students are relayed to the relevant partners for further advice and registration. However, prior to contacting the centre, students should have readied themselves by selecting the courses and programmes of their choice. A basic knowledge of French might be useful to facilitate the initial phone conversation.

Participants in the EduContact partnership include

OU UK / The Open University (United Kingdom),
Uned / Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (Spain),
EITSA / Estonian Information Technology Foundation (Estonia),
OUNL / Open University of the Netherland (Neteherlands),
Anadolu University (Turkey),
Fied / Fédération interuniversitaire de l'enseignement Ã distance (France),
EADTU / European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (Netherlands).

Further information