Important documents
for Erasmus/ Short-term Students
Organizing a student mobility involves a lot of administrative steps between student, home and host university. Below we present you the most important mobility documents that we issue/sign for you as a host university upon request.
Learning Agreement
Before coming to the Faculty of Arts and Humanities for your short-term study abroad, you are required to create a "Learning Agreement", in which you need to enter all the modules and courses you are going to attend at the University of Cologne. The Learning Agreement is an agreement about your study programme, which should be approved by both the Center for International Relations at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (ZIB PhilFak) and your home university. Usually, you will receive a Learning Agreement form from your home university. If your home university does not provide a form or you would like to send us a draft version first, you can use this template.
Please send your Learning Agreement for approval to philfak-incomings(at)uni-koeln.de
- Winter semester: a first draft must be submitted by the end of August (course listings are published at the end of July)
- Summer semester: a first draft must be submitted by the end of February (course listings are published at the beginning of February)
To avoid unnecessary paperwork, we kindly ask you not to send your Learning Agreement before course listings of the respective semester have been published!
Rules and instructions on how to select courses and format your Learning Agreement can be found here: Course Selection - Instructions for short-term students at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Certificate of Enrolment
After enrolling at the University of Cologne, you can download a Certificate of Enrolment from KLIPS 2.0 if needed (instructions).
The Certificate of Enrolment is valid without signature/seal. It has a verification number printed on it that can be used to verify the document at http://uni-koeln.de/verify.
Certificate of Arrival / Stay
If you receive a scholarship for your semester abroad (e.g. ERASMUS+), you have to document the beginning and end date of your mobility precisely so that your grant is paid out in full. Usually, your home university will provide you with a special form for this ("Certificate of Arrival / Stay" or similar) that has to be signed by the host university. This document allows you to prove when you started your short-term study in Cologne.
If you would like to have such a document issued or signed after your arrival, please send an e-mail to the International Office (erasmus_students(at)verw.uni-koeln.de) or the Center for International Relations (philfak-incomings(at)uni-koeln.de) and enclose a proof of your arrival date (e.g. plane/train ticket). Alternatively, the date of the Welcome Days or the start of the lecture period (or the pre-semester German course) can be entered as the start date of your mobility. Please check with your home university which date they require.
Transcript of Records
At the end of the stay, most short-term students require a "Transcript of Records" (ToR) to document their academic achievements at the University of Cologne (courses taken, ECTS credits earned, and grades received).
IMPORTANT: Your Transcript of Records will not be issued automatically!
Here is how you get it:
After the official exam date displayed in KLIPS 2.0, lecturers have eight weeks to mark your exams, enter your grades in KLIPS 2.0 and send them to the examination’s office for validation. As soon as the examination's office has validated the grades, they will appear on KLIPS 2.0 (see "Transcript of Records" > "Print Transcript"). Winter semester grades are usually released in March or April, summer semester grades in September or October.
If you have a tight deadline at your home university, inform your lecturers accordingly and ask if they could mark your exams first to avoid any delays. Note, however, that lecturers can submit your grades only after the official exam date shown in KLIPS 2.0!
If you have completed full modules, credit points will appear automatically in KLIPS 2.0 once your grades have been validated. If you have taken reduced workload options, ZIB PhilFak needs to confirm your credit points manually.
Please send an e-mail to philfak-incomings(at)uni-koeln.de once all your grades are shown on KLIPS 2.0 to ask for finalization of your Transcript of Records!
Following your e-mail, ZIB PhilFak will add missing credit points (if necessary), finalize your Transcript of Records and send it to your home university via e-mail. Upon request, we can also send a hard copy via post.
Certificate of Departure / Stay
If you receive a scholarship for your semester abroad (e.g. ERASMUS+), you have to document the beginning and end date of your mobility precisely so that your grant is paid out in full. Usually, your home university will provide you with a special form for this ("Certificate of Departure / Attendance" or similar) that has to be signed by the host university. This document officially confirms the duration of your study period in Cologne.
If you would like to have such a document issued or signed at the end of your stay, please send an e-mail to the International Office (erasmus_students(at)verw.uni-koeln.de) or the Center for International Relations (philfak-incomings(at)uni-koeln.de) and enclose a proof of your departure date (e.g. plane/train ticket, rental contract). Alternatively, we can enter the end date of the lecture period or the date of your last exam (as shown on KLIPS 2.0) as end date of your mobility. Please check with your home university which date they require.