OERinfo

The OER information centre offers a thematically specific online platform that provides the public at large and specialized target groups with comprehensive information regarding Open Educational Resources. Moreover, OERinfo will deliver the current state of art to practitioners, host information on best-practice examples, and reflect the diversity of existing initiatives.

A comprehensive knowledge base was thus constructed, offering edited thematic dossiers and systematically structured collections of information, with an enhanced scope, owing to integrated multimedia formats (e.g. podcasts, videos, didactically processed online modules) and communication platforms that are enriched by social media applications. Moreover, the project targeted the support of collaboration and networking among different OER actors and initiatives by offering suitable communication instruments, accompanying workshops and public relations work of the OER information centre.

In the second phase of the project (since November 2018), the focus of the further development and differentiation of the web platform was mainly on practical or application-oriented issues in the context of didactic-teaching use of freely licensed (digital) educational media. The active implementation of the OER paradigm in education and training should be further supported by workshops, training courses, and digital tools.

MultiTex

This project studied the process-based assessment of multiple documents comprehension (Multiple Documents Literacy).

In order to cope with the demands of their studies, university students of all subjects have to be able to familiarize with different topics and find out important information in a self-regulated way. In the context of university learning, they are usually confronted with multiple sources and (text) documents that might provide redundant and complementary but also conflicting information. These demands comprise more than comprehension of single texts as information of multiple sources needs to be related to and integrated with each other. Previous research indicates that students often fail to integrate information from multiple documents and sources appropriately.

In this project, a computer-based instrument for assessing university students’ competence of multiple documents comprehension (multiple documents literacy, MDL) was developed and in part validated. Especially, with a focus on additional process-based measures. A process-based measures was used 1) as additional diagnostic information and 2) in order to identify strategies of processing multiple documents and to test theories of multiple documents comprehension.

Digi-EBF

The framework program empirical education research of the BMBF contributes with its research focus on „Digitalization in Education” in the field of „Creating and Using Technological Developments in Education” to the “Education Offensive for the Digital Knowledge Society”. The meta project is coordinated by the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) which accompanies the projects of the research area.

It presents the results of the projects in an overall scientific and social framework, analyzes the developments in the research area in a scientific manner, identifies research gaps, and promotes the networking of researches with each other as well as the exchange with educational practice. For successfully handling these divers and extensive tasks the University of Duisburg-Essen works closely together with DIPF, DIE, and IWM. The meta project thus contributes to the further development of the research field and promotes the quality of the research area “Digitalization in the Field of Education”. The work done within the meta project strengthens the relevance of the research project for the educational practice, promotes collaboration between science and practice, and transmits central research results for the public.

MBook

The multimedia textbook (MBook) developed by Waltraud Schreiber’s research group was an interactive and customizable study- and workbook for a classroom setting which reveals its own principles of construction and was prototypically developed for history lessons. Technically and didactically this browser-based and hyperactive book was a new development for competence-based teaching.

The main potential of the MBook lied in the possibility of its use both as a promotional tool as well as a research instrument. The project scientifically examined the capability of the multimedia textbook.

The project examined whether and how the instructional and extra-curricular utilization data can be applied towards the clarification of skills development.

Final report (in German).

Ubiquitous Working

The technological potential for separating work from the workplace is constantly increasing. Mobile devices, mobile internet access and remote access to firms’ internal networks and data allow for working anywhere at any time, i.e. Ubiquitous Working (UW). An interdisciplinary network of scholars used theory-based empirical research to explore the opportunities and challenges arising from UW. For this purpose, the project made use of rich data on both employees and employers in order to examine the diverse dimensions of UW that are relevant from the perspective of the involved disciplines – economics, work psychology, media psychology, occupational medicine, and sociology. The project’s objective was to bring together these disciplines in a closely collaborating network of institutions and scholars in order to gain deeper insights into the phenomenon of UW.

IWM | Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien

Digital media are playing an increasingly important role in daily life. People nowadays readily use computers, Internet and mobile technologies at school, at work or in their leisure time. At the same time the information environments are becoming more and more complex. With this in mind, the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM) in Tübingen investigates how digital media affects knowledge and communication processes and how they can be used in order to optimize these processes. The psychological basic and application oriented research of IWM’s scientists focuses mainly on five fields of practice:

  • Teaching and learning with digital media in schools
  • Teaching and learning with digital media in universities
  • Knowledge-related internet usage
  • Knowledge work with digital media
  • Knowledge transfer in museums and exhibitions

Together with cooperation partners from practice the IWM jointly realizes pilot projects for testing new learning scenarios. One example is the information portal e-teaching.org (in German only) for the application of digital media in university teaching. In the field of practice school the IWM has – together with education researchers from the Leibniz Universität Hannover and partners from practice – developed a prototype for a digital school book (eChemBook). Since 2016, the IWM has a digital teaching lab TüDiLab (in German), where media based teaching processes can be analyzed. The research done at the IWM thus results in essential knowledge for scientific progress and gives answers to important societal questions.

Important work and offers:

  • The Human-Agent Interaction Network (MAI Network) explores human interaction with artificial intelligence processing natural language. The interdisciplinary projects address the acceptance of language agents and the effects of their use on human performance. Each project has a cooperation partner at either the University of Tübingen or Stuttgart with expertise in data science and artificial intelligence.
  • The LEAD („Learning, Educational Achievement, and Life Course Development“) Graduate School & Research Network offers an integrated research and training program for doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers willing to do research in the fields of learning, educational achievement, and life course development. The IWM is actively involved in the supervision of PhD students in the LEAD program. Furthermore, several IWM lab heads are members of the steering committee of LEAD.
  • The Tübingen School of Education (TüSE) structures, pools and organizes the research of teacher education in Tübingen. It actively promotes new research activities and connects existing expertise. The IWM works closely together with TüSE and jointly created a new junior professorship for Teaching and Learning with Digital Media in cooperation with the University of Tübingen. Also associated with TüSE is the Tübingen Digital Teaching Lab (TüDiLab – in German), which is located at the IWM. The TüDiLab simulates a classroom equipped with up-to-date digital media and data collection instruments. The project has two aims: (1) practice-oriented professionalization of teachers related to their media competence in the context of the Tübingen School of Education, and (2) research on the effects of teaching with digital media.
  • Digitization in Teacher Education (TüDiLB) Center for Research and Transfer is a virtual network of the IWM and the University of Tübingen that bundles research and transfer activities in the field of digitization in teacher education in Tübingen. In addition, the network prepares and presents the latest research results on teaching and learning with digital media for teachers and other stakeholders involved in the various phases of teacher education.