In order to make it easier for professionally qualified prospective students to start their studies, individual support will now be available right from the study decision phase: The Department of Further Education and Education Management and the Centre for Lifelong Learning (C3L) at the University of Oldenburg are developing extensive support services as part of the InOS project, which is part of the BMBF initiative "ANKOM - Transitions from Vocational to Higher Education".

Cooperation partners in the project are the Institute of Technology and Education (ITB) at the University of Bremen, the Oldenburg Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce for East Frisia and Papenburg, wisoak of the Bremen Chamber of Labour and the Wolfgang Schulenberg Institute for Educational Research and Adult Education. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

The amendment to the Lower Saxony Higher Education Act in June 2010 significantly expanded access to university for those with academic appointments without an Abitur. As part of the "Open University" pilot project, various credit transfer options for further education qualifications have also been created in recent years, allowing students to shorten their studies.

The "Individualised Online Study Preparation Programme for Academic Appointments (InOS)" consists of three components:

1) Individualised study counselling is intended to provide information on credit transfer options for qualifications as early as the study decision stage. Depending on the further education qualification, the part-time Bachelor's degree programme "Business Administration in medium-sized companies" (C3L) can be reduced by up to three (out of a total of eight) part-time semesters for those with academic appointments.

2) As part of the consultation, any gaps in knowledge are identified and suitable professionalisation modules are recommended. These modules also provide initial study content and are credited in the later degree programme (Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, C3L). In order to enable working students to organise their management of studies largely independent of time and place, the modules alternate between attendance days and internet-based learning phases ("blended learning").

3) The creation of an e-portfolio encourages students to become aware of their own competences and to reflect on and document them. The informally acquired competences recorded in this way can be credited with up to 40 CP at the start of the degree programme.