This digital humanities project has been conceived as a template for future projects and will examine a period in history characterised by the accelerated generation of knowledge, and by simultaneous globalisation and nationalisation. The project was committed to close collaborations between historians and information scientists in order to secure new academic findings. In trans-disciplinary explorative research, reusable instruments were being developed for the analysis of large (digital) source corpora, which can cope with the semantics of diverse nineteenth century educational media and detect ‘qualitative’ structures. Such techniques, in turn, created new ways of accessing ‘mass’ sources, which mirrored and shaped the contemporary interpretation of the world and elements of cultural memory, but which are all but impenetrable using hermeneutic methods. Diachronous and synchronous analysis were employed to enable the (trans)formation of knowledge stocks and the meta analysis of the cognitive potential, and boundaries, of digital processes.
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 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.
