Education Abroad requires that students applying for study abroad obtain an academic reference from an OU faculty member or instructor. Input from faculty who have taught students is our primary factor in deciding if a student is intellectually and emotionally ready for a study abroad experience.
Students need one academic reference to be considered for summer or short-term programs, and two for semester or year-long exchanges. For some programs, one of these references must be from a faculty member or instructor who has taught the student in a language other than English and is able to evaluate the student’s target language skills.
Our office has an online recommendation form. We will also gladly accept hard copy letters.
Recommendation requests from students will come from our office’s mail email address, ea@ou.edu. In the subject line of the email it will say “Recommendation Request from _______ (with the name of the student requesting the recommendation automatically inserted) for Education Abroad.” Attached to the email will be a document you may print, complete and send to our office as a hard copy.
The body of the email will contain the name of the student, the program s/he would like to attend and the term the student intends to study abroad. The email will also include a link to complete the recommendation form.
This link will require you to do one of two things:
- Click the URL link provided in the email and then cut and paste the “Recommendation ID” as well as the last name of the student in the box provided
- Login to our website (link here to the login page) with your OU 4x4 ID and password.
Note: you will not be able to login to the Education Abroad website if a student has not already requested a recommendation from you. Once a student has requested a recommendation from you, however, you will be able to login using your regular OU ID and password. You will not need to set up a new user name and password other than what you already use for all other OU sites, including your OU email.
If you have multiple students who have requested a recommendation, then it will probably be easier for you to simply login to the website using your OU 4x4 and password. Go to our homepage and you will see a login button in the right margin. You will get a recommender homepage that will tell you all of the recommendations you have, including ones that are pending and ones you have completed.
The recommendation form itself will inform you in bold letters at the top whether or not the student has waived his or her right to read or obtain copies of your recommendation. Our office will be advising students that the standard practice is to waive this right. If a student does not waive this right, or if you don’t want to complete the recommendation request for any other reason, simply let us know at ea@ou.edu and we will delete the request.
The recommendation form allows a great deal of flexibility in how you submit your reference. You may upload a document you have on your computer using the folder icon, cut and paste language you have on file for the student already, or simply write in the web editor what you want to say about the student.
In addition to the reference letter field itself, we will also ask a “yes or no” question as to whether or not you recommend the student for study abroad. Finally, there will be an optional field for faculty to comment on non-English language skills for programs where that applies.
Once you are finished with the recommendation request, simply hit “send” and your comments will be sent to a secure system accessible only to our office staff.
Questions? Concerns? Please let us know by calling our office at 405-325-1693 or by sending us an email at ea@ou.edu. We appreciate your time and thank you for your service to the University of Oklahoma.