Share your application with ENSEIRB-MATMECA and your home institution

chapeau:

page created by pyg on 9 January 2010, last edition mov on 4 May 2010

This is how application sharing works:

1- Get in touch with us

Your home institution officially announces your application, by an e-mail to us, with cc to you;
Alternatively, you get in touch with us, with cc to your home institution representative(s).

2- Get a shared application folder from us

ENSEIRB-MATMECA international office invites you, by e-mail, to provide us with your Google identifier: a Google identifier is any personal e-mail address (not necessarily "gmail"), that you associate with Google. If it is a "gmail" address, it is already associated; otherwise, go to Google docs, hit the First steps blue button, bottom right of the page, and follow the indications (30 seconds of your time, a few minutes if you are unlucky); then, please reply to our message, to let us know your Google identifier;
ENSEIRB-MATMECA international office opens a Google Docs application folder to your name, and invites you, by a short message sent from Google docs, to share this application folder with us (and your institution representative(s));
You eventually ask us to invite your home institution representative(s) to share your application folder; alternatively, we may ask your institution representatives to share your folder.

3- Collaborate to build up your application in your folder

You (and/or your institution representatives) upload all your application documents (letter of motivation, résumé (curriculum vitae), transcripts of records, letters of recommendation, ...) to this folder;
We eventually deposit forms to be filled, such as a learning agreement;
An ENSEIRB-MATMECA professor in your domain of studies (computer science, electronics, mathematics & mechanics, or telecommunications) is assigned to you, and will help you fill the learning agreement, in collaboration with your home tutor, by selecting appropriate courses, or finding a lab project supervisor;
Other ENSEIRB-MATMECA staff will help you, and share your folder, for instance: language department professors, for French language issues, or international officers, for your housing problems;
Google docs allows simultaneous editing of documents;
All documents related to your application will be placed into your folder, including officially signed documents, instead of being transmitted by e-mail, as attached documents.

Nowadays, document sharing is much more efficient than document e-mailing. Why?

People mailboxes are crowded with thousands of e-mail messages;
Important messages often get lost, or are mis-unterpreted as Spam;
Attached documents have to be detached, and stored in multiple places; collaborators do not share the same view of the latest version of a document, often resulting into misunderstanding and waste of time;
On the contrary, document sharing allow all contributors to have the same view of the latest version, even permitting simultaneous edition; there is a tremendous gain in accuracy and time saving;
Not convinced? Watch Google docs in plain English video on Youtube!

If you do not have access to Google docs, or are reluctant to use it, we shall still consider your application, and handle it by more traditional means, but you will have to expect increased delay and possible mishandling.

Some help on Google docs

Google docs is fairly easy to use: Google provides help and user forums; we provide some help here, for the more common difficulties beginners are likely to encounter, for instance upon trying to upload documents to the application folder for the first time.

How to upload one or more documents to my application folder?

See 8 step uploading procedure.
New! Update to procedure: Do not forget to untick (deselect) the "Convert documents, presentations, ..." check box, so that your files are uploaded in their original format, with no conversion. Otherwise, there is a limit on the allowed size. [Google added this conversion check box after we made the procedure screen shots.]

I uploaded files, but they don't show up in my application folder! Why?

You probably forgot to hit the OK button after selecting your application folder as target folder for the upload: hence, your files go into "No folder"'! Review steps 5 and 6 of uploading procedure.;
The file is not lost: you can probably see it in "All items", and then move it to the right folder using the "Folders" menu tab; alternatively, just restart the UPLOAD carefully.

I tried to upload an image (JPEG file), but Google docs refuses the upload

You probably forgot to untick the "Convert socuments, presentations, ... to the corresponding Google. docs formats". Hence Google docs enforces a size limit, especially on images. Your image is probably too big: check Google docs restrictions. If you uncheck the box, your file does not get converted, and there is no limit on the size;
Our advice: prefer PDF files to images: if your images result from a document scan, it is better to produce a PDF directly from the document (with all pages combined into one PDF document), which most scanners allow; alternatively, you can combine page images into one single PDF documen, using appropriate tools, such as Adobe Acrobat. Please note that 200 Kb per page is usually fine; 500 Kb is still OK; do not use more than 1 Mb per page, as it will slow down viewing or downloading. Make sure your pageshave the proper orientation, as it is extremely frustrating and painful to read documents with the head bent horizontally, or worse, the head upside down!

Acknowledgement

We thank Google for letting us use Google docs tool.