Digitale Lehre Hub Niedersachsen
The “Digitale Lehre Hub Niedersachsen” project promotes long-term cooperation between Lower Saxony's universities in the field of digital teaching. It is an important pillar in the development of Hochschule.digital Niedersachsen (HdN).
The digitalisation of society and the world of work requires universities to constantly adapt. Catalysts such as the coronavirus pandemic and the emergence of generative AI tools have further accelerated this development and greatly increased the demands on digital tools provided by universities, as well as on support and training programmes. The Digital Teaching Hub Lower Saxony is a direct response to these developments. It serves as a central platform for networking and expertise, for digital technologies in teaching and learning contexts, and as a nucleus for testing and integrating new technologies. After the end of the project, the Digital Teaching Hub will continue to exist within the permanent structures of the universities in Lower Saxony. In order to facilitate the sustainable safeguarding of the results developed during the project, all project staff are based in central university facilities.
The project is funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation with more than €25 million and comprises six sub-projects involving 20 Lower Saxony universities and other partners such as GWDG, GEI and Elan e.V. The aim is to prepare teachers and students for the didactic and technological challenges of teaching and learning at their universities and to support them in shaping future transformation processes.
Leuphana is leading the way in promoting both technological and didactic innovations in the field of digital teaching. Together with the projects on artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, important foundations are being laid for the future of higher education in Lower Saxony.
Leuphana is responsible for the sub-project 'Cooperation of Services in the Area of Digital Teaching (Service cooperation)', one of the largest projects in this network, in which all 20 universities are involved. Leuphana is also directly involved as a network partner in the sub-projects 'AI in Studies, Teaching and Examinations' and 'Emerging Tech Lab'.
Subproject “Cooperation between services in the field of digital teaching (Service cooperation)”
Project Management: Leuphana University Lueneburg; Dr. Julia Webersik
Duration: 1 October 2024 to 31 July 2028
Funding volume: almost 5 million euros
The aim of this subproject is to establish a long-term and cross-location cooperation between the media didactic services of the universities in Lower Saxony. The focus is on the development of joint advisory, support and qualification services as well as the testing of digital learning technologies and the piloting of innovative teaching and learning concepts. The sub-project is the central interface for all other university.digital Lower Saxony project measures in the area of teaching and learning. It is directly linked to the experiences and results of the ConnEx project and cooperates in many areas with the SOUVER@N project.
The subproject also acts as a 'core project' for all other project activities of Hochschule.digital Niedersachsen in the area of teaching and learning. As all state universities in Lower Saxony are represented, it is the central interface and thus the basis for inter-university cooperation. The results of the other subprojects of the Digital Teaching Hub Lower Saxony are brought into the inter-university exchange and transfer via the subproject 'Cooperation of Services in the Field of Digital Teaching' (short: Service cooperation).
Subproject “AI in Studies, Teaching and Examinations”
Lead Partner: University of Osnabrück; Dr. Andreas Knaden
Duration: 1 October 2024 to 31 July 2028
The introduction of AI in higher education has already necessitated a paradigm shift in university teaching and work. The addition of new AI tools and the expansion of the application areas of existing tools will continue to make it necessary to address this particular case of the general digitisation process in the coming years. The main objective of this sub-project is to develop an AI policy for the universities in Lower Saxony in the area of teaching and learning. In addition, relevant developments in the field of AI technologies will be monitored and training, support material and guidelines will be created to support teachers, students and administrators in the legally compliant and future-oriented use of AI.
Subproject “Emerging Tech Lab”
Project Management: Technical University of Braunschweig; Julius Othmer
Duration: 1 January 2025 to 30 September 2028
Emerging technologies are innovative, potentially disruptive technologies that are still under development. This sub-project aims to identify them at an early stage and to explore their relevance for educational and labour market contexts. The overall aim is to actively shape technological developments rather than being unprepared for them, as was recently the case with OpenAI's ChatGPT. Universities should develop and test scenarios in advance to anticipate possible consequences and be able to use new technologies in a targeted and reflective way from the outset.
Other sub-projects that will create synergies for the establishment of the “Digitale Lehre Hub Niedersachsen”:
Subproject “Discovering, Testing and Providing innovative teaching/learning tools”
Management: Fachhochschule Osnabrück; Lea Middelberg
Duration: 1 October 2024 to 31 July 2028
In this subproject, digital teaching and learning tools will be selected, tested and made available across universities via the Academic Cloud. The aim is to provide a curated selection of privacy compliant tools from commercial and open source sources that support high quality and efficient teaching and learning processes. This will be done in close cooperation with the other sub-projects.
Subproject “Open Source Development Network (OSDN)”
Lead Partner: Leibniz Universität Hannover; Cornelis Kater
Duration: 1 January 2025 to 30 September 2028
The subproject promotes the further development and coordination of open source platforms used for teaching at universities in Lower Saxony. A modern and secure software landscape in the areas of cybersecurity, data protection, accessibility and usability is essential for this. The OSDN brings together the stakeholders of the platforms and the open source communities in order to improve the quality of the products and the integration of innovative functions through the targeted use of resources, as well as to optimise collaboration with cloud-based tools.
Subproject “Clustered e-Assessment”
Management: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen; Dr. Dirk Lanwert
Duration: 1 January 2025 to 30 September 2028
This subproject aims to provide inter-university solutions for e-assessment. The shared infrastructure, services and processes will enable legally compliant and innovative digital assessments. Particular emphasis will be placed on the further development of existing e-assessment software, new technologies such as text and image recognition, automatic task generation and adaptive assessments.