ReCo

The project “Automatic Response Coding” (ReCo) centers around text responses in tests. The computer programme ReCo automatically assesses whether a text response is correct, for example “The author aims at saving the trees.” as an answer in the PISA test. Moreover, ReCo extracts further features, for example whether a student adds knowledge to their response beyond the explicit information in the text.

The computer programme ReCo was originally developed at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the ZIB. In cooperation with both institutions, the Centre for Technology Based Assessment (TBA Centre) at DIPF is now developing the software package further. The project comprises the general software development as well as scientific studies employing ReCo. For this, TBA is responsible for the conceptual and technical development on the one hand and acts as the project manager for projects such as ReCo-Multi on the other hand. Also, TBA supports external research groups using the program.

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.

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.

Exchange of metadata

Ongoing exchange of metadata with continuous updates between ZPID reference database PSYNDEX and information infrastructures hosted at the DIPF (German Education Server und German Education Index | FIS Bildung Literaturdatenbank [only in German]). Exchange includes information and scientific publications from German-speaking countries in the fields of (a) Educational Psychology and (b) selected basic subjects of psychology.

Eduserver

The German Education Server (Eduserver) is a guide to educational information on the web and offers basic and high-quality information and internet resources to all interested parties – fast, up-to-date, comprehensively and free of charge. In its function as a meta-server, the Eduserver mainly refers to internet resources provided by the federal government (Bund) and the federal states (Länder) of Germany, the European Union, higher education institutions, schools, state institutes, non-university research institutes, science organisations, libraries, documentation centres or museums, structuring the information and presenting it in scholarly contexts. The Eduserver also supports the collaboration between the education servers of all federal states in Germany. It additionally offers the platform Education Worldwide and a guide to educational research in Germany.

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 these fields of practice:

  • Knowledge processes in formal learning settings
  • Teaching and learning with digital media in schools
  • Teaching and learning with digital media in universities
  • Knowledge processes in informal learning settings, e.g. museums, memorials, portals, archives
  • Knowledge processes in everyday media use

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 established 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. Additionally in 2023, the IWM opened a Future Innovation Space (FIS) (in German) where future digital possibilities for schools can be explored and experimented with. It consists of three components – alongside the TüDiLab, there is a Mixed Reality Lab and a Multi-Touch Lab.

Important work and offers:

  • 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.

GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

As the largest German infrastructure institute for the social sciences, GESIS – Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, with its expertise and services, stands ready to support researchers on the basis of the newest scientific methods, high quality data and research information.

Research projects generally go through a process with several phases – the research data cycle. Therefore, the services offered by GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences are structured along a four-phase research data cycle, as follows:

  • Plan studies & collect data
  • Finding & retrieving data
  • Prepare & analyze data
  • Archive & share

GESIS offers consulting and practice-oriented guidance for each phase.
In the first phase, for example, GESIS experts advise on the collection of survey data and digital behavioral data. Researchers are supported in the development of an adequate project design and the quality assurance of the implementation.
The second phase, Find & Retrieve Data, enables researchers to find the appropriate data for secondary analysis. For this purpose, more than 6500 national and international studies are available in the GESIS data archive.
The preparation of data is also an essential step on the way to their analysis. Therefore, in the third phase Prepare & Analyze Data, GESIS supports the modification, linking, and analysis of data.
In the fourth phase, Archive & Share, GESIS promotes scientific transparency in line with the FAIR principles: F(indable) A(ccessible) I(nteroperable) and R(e-usable).
At GESIS, researchers can find repositories and services to archive, register, and share their data and publications over the long term.

The services offered for the research process are based on our own continuous and interdisciplinary research in the four areas of Survey Methodology, Research Data Management, Current Societal Issues, and Applied Informatics, as well as within their intersections.

Data Archive for the Social Sciences (DAS)
The department Data Archive for the Social Sciences (DAS) is Germany’s central infrastructure for the registration, documentation and digital archiving of quantitative research data which can be used to analyze societal developments from a national, internationally comparative or historical perspective.

Research Data Center
The Research Data Centers (RDC) at GESIS offer a special service for a number of survey programs for which GESIS partially participate in the data collection or permanently take over the tasks of data processing, archiving and delivery

One of GESIS’ most important research areas is education research. GESIS is involved in significant German, European, and international projects: Within PIAAC, GESIS is part of the PIAAC Consortium, which is the board responsible for planning and controlling. GESIS is also responsible for the German project management. An enhancement is PIAAC-L, a project that is implemented together with LIfBi and SOEP. It is the first internationally comparable long-term study worldwide for competencies in adulthood. Further selected GESIS projects within the area of educational research are:

  • CIDER – College for Interdisciplinary Education Research for the support of talented junior researchers in interdisciplinary context
  • Feasibility study for the Baden-Württemberg-Panel to generate progress data on the transfer from education at school and vocational training
  • CAMCES – Computer-Assisted Measurement and Coding of Educational Qualifications in surveys to make the internationally greatly varying survey tools for education comparable in survey data.

DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education

The DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education provides a central information infrastructure for and about education in Germany, expanding scientific foundations by conducting research in its own right. As a national centre for educational research, DIPF investigates education from systemic, institutional, individual and historical perspectives. Accordingly, it critically reflects on existing concepts for quality, governance and improvement. DIPF delivers theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions, connecting fundamental research with innovative developmental work and applications for the benefit of society. Owing to its diversity of disciplines, long-term experience in co-ordinating large-scale projects, national and international networking and positioning as a competence centre for knowledge communication and research on education, the Institute is particularly well equipped to react flexibly with respect to complex demands and diverse developments in education, and to provide incentives for the further development of education systems.

Important work and services:

  • DIPF holds a leading role in national educational reporting, commissioned by the federal government (Bund) and states (Länder).
  • DIPF continually takes on relevant tasks in the context of large-scale OECD studies on education (PISA, PIAAC).
  • In co-operation with Goethe-University Frankfurt and the Sigmund-Freud Institute (in German), DIPF runs the interdisciplinary centre for research on individual development processes in children and adaptive instructional design, IDeA.
  • The German Education Server is a central guide to education on the web. Jointly funded by the federal government (Bund) and the federal states (Länder), it is co-ordinated at DIPF.
  • The Research Data Centre for Education provides observation data (e.g., lesson videos) and interview data and related material. Questionnaires and individually indexed scales (item batteries) are also openly accessible. Registered users can download available anonymized transcripts, coding and descriptions
  • The Institute provides the German Education Portal (in German), the central access point to scientific information for educational researchers, educational scientists and pedagogical practice.
  • The interdisciplinary area of “Technology Based Assessment” is concerned with researching and developing new procedures in computer-based educational measurement.
  • The DIPF department “Research Library for the History of Education” is a centre for education historical research; it is the largest specialised pedagogical library in Germany.