<<ENGLISH>> Before you realize it, you’re already in the middle of a new year. A year that brings exciting and many question marks – also for us as the NextEducation working group at DHBW Karlsruhe. However, the last few months in particular have once again made new ideas, networks, projects and potential possible. And since our work thrives on exchange, we would like to share with you what our current work focuses on and what we have been working on in recent months.
Ongoing Projects
CHAISE – Blockchain Skills for Europe (Erasmus+)
The CHAISE project is the first to develop a pan-European integrative system for the governance of specific blockchain skills. The governance system will enable the alignment of supply and demand for skilled professionals by providing appropriate skills development, information gathering and mobility solutions tailored to the needs of the sector.
Status: Collecting blockchain labor market information and identifying skills gaps
ENCORE+ – European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education (Erasmus+)
The European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education (ENCORE+) responds to Europe-wide efforts to open up and modernize education and training by creating a network that supports innovation and entrepreneurship through Open Educational Resources (OER). Through ENCORE+, a new vision for collaboration and connection between OER repositories in a European OER ecosystem is realized.
Status: Project initiation
InclusiPHE – Inclusive Engagement of Non-Traditional Students in Professional Higher Education (Erasmus+)
The InclusiPHE project links the social dimension of higher education with student engagement – and has as its main goal to contribute to a more inclusive environment in higher education institutions. The project aims to improve rules, mechanisms and ways of acting for inclusive engagement of all students regardless of their background – to involve all students in all aspects of teaching and learning, quality assurance and institutional decision-making within the institution and the student body.
Status: Survey of barriers and frameworks for inclusive student engagement
DIGI-HE – A Strategic Reflection Tool of Digitalisation at European Higher Education Institutions (Erasmus+)
The project aims to develop a tool for universities and colleges to help them independently assess their current position in the process of digitization, and also to identify opportunities to further develop their digital capabilities.
Status: Peer learning activities in the framework of the EEA Thematic Peer Groups (TPG) on priority topics
Open Game – Promoting Open Education through Gamification (Erasmus+)
The Open Game Project aims to develop an online game for teachers that offers the possibility to try out open teaching methods in realistic application scenarios and to receive immediate feedback on the decisions. The goal is to raise awareness among teachers about the numerous possibilities of open teaching methods and to motivate them to apply and use open teaching methods.
Status: Finalization of the game development, soon release of the prototype
RECAPHE – Enhancing Staff Research Capacity in Professional Higher Education (Erasmus+)
The project aims to identify the competencies required by participants in order to successfully carry out research work at universities. The goal is to develop a tool that shows employees ways to optimize their competencies. After the required competencies have been recorded and the current level of competencies has been classified, a digital training offer will be developed through which these competencies can be acquired or expanded.
Status: Design of a self-evaluation tool to assess applied research skills, development of an online self-study course
Future Skills – The Future of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education
The research and work focus Future Skills examines questions concerning Future Skills, Future Learning Concepts and Future Higher Education. Our research interests focus in particular on those competencies that future graduates of higher education should possess in order to be able to move agilely in the constantly changing, innovation-driven field of work.
Status: Research on Future Skills practices in global higher education teaching
Book Publications:
Podcast-Series „NextNormal“ and „Studium im Shutdown“
In two podcast series and related qualitative research, we want to find out from students what has changed for them and how studying works in times of the Corona shutdown. Another goal is to find out what universities could do better, what works well and what they can learn for the future. What can higher education institutions learn from the shutdown and what is the „Next Normal“ of European higher education and student life? The podcasts are available on all major platforms.
Projects in preparation
DirkDUAL – Digital reflection tool for competence development in dual studies (state research funding line for the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University 2020)
This project develops the first digital portfolio-based tool for self-directed competence development based on the interlinking of theory and practice phases in the context of dual studies. The open access ePortfolio tool uses the possibilities of digitalization to replace the previous experience documentation of the practical phase and to promote cyclical, reflective learning in the practical study phase throughout the student lifecycle as well as to open it up for coaching and peer learning processes.
EdCoN – Education Competence Network (Funding Announcement 2020 „Strengthening University Teaching through Digitization“)
The EdCoN project uses the synergy potential of the State University model of the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University to accelerate the digital transformation of teaching. A teaching-learning lab will be set up at each of the ten DHBW locations to develop, evaluate, and disseminate innovative concepts related to specific topics. The resulting competence centers will be networked in the Education Competence Network (EdCoN) and their know-how will be made available across all locations.
Further projects in preparation
- Developing an ethical reference framework for AI and Big Data in higher education – AI Compass (AI Campus)
- Developing an ethical reference framework for AI and Big Data in higher education – AI Compass (BMBF)
- Future Career Xelerator (Erasmus+)
- Raising digital competencies of the workforce (Erasmus+)
- Community of Learning for African PhD students (CoLA)