The People behind Mannheim’s Digital Transformation

It is June 2023, in the middle of the exam period. Over 200 students are sitting expectantly in lecture theater A3, waiting for their 90-minute exam on financial reporting. But something is different. People in orange and yellow high-vis jackets are walking between the rows of desks. And on top of the desks are not the usual pens and paper, but laptops. The reason? For the first time ever, Mannheim students are being allowed to use their own laptops for an exam.

“In this ‘bring your own device’ format, the students enter their answers using the university’s online assessment platform Prüfungs-ILIAS. That makes both taking and marking the exams easier,” explained Melanie Klinger, Head of the Teaching and Learning Center (ZLL). Together with her colleague Svenja Böhn and Alexander Holzer from Division II (Student Affairs), Klinger has been working on the introduction of digital exams at the university. In the spring/summer semester, the new format was tested in three exams with around 800 students.

Holzer explained that the “bring your own device” exams are relatively cheat-proof: “All students installed a safe exam browser on their laptops beforehand. That’s a browser specially programmed for online exams. Once they open that browser, they can no longer access other applications. And the browser can’t be minimized, it can only be closed — which ends the exam.”

In the runup to the exams, the organizing team arranged advice sessions, test runs of the exams, and laptop loans for students who did not want to use their own devices. “During the exams, everything worked. Neither the Wi-Fi nor the platform malfunctioned. We were a little worried about that beforehand,” explained Böhn. “But we were ready for those kinds of problems. The platform autosaves every 30 seconds, so that answers are not lost even if the system crashes. There was also backup Wi-Fi, power banks, and staff from the university IT team on hand.” To distinguish the IT experts from the regular exam monitors, they wore different-colored high-vis jackets so students knew who to direct any questions to.

What is the next step? “The feedback from many of the students was positive,” said Böhn. “But there were some criticisms. For instance, some people complained about the noise from the typing.” Despite that, Holzer is optimistic: “We’ll simply have to see what can be done better next time.” And there will be a next time: “We’ve already been contacted by several staff members interested in offering ‘bring your own device’ formats for their exams,” said Klinger.

These exams would not be possible without the University IT (UNIT) team. The 120 or so UNIT staff are involved in all digitalization projects at the University of Mannheim. For instance, UNIT set up Prüfungs-ILIAS and the safe exam browser, without which the “bring your own device” exams would not be possible. It also equipped several rooms on campus with cameras for hybrid teaching and is currently implementing digital student records and a new campus management system that will allow students to complete many forms digitally.

“We’ve completed several projects in the last few months,” said Alexander Pfister, co-head of UNIT (alongside Kerstin Bein). Two big success stories were the switch to electronic invoicing and the introduction of Microsoft Office 365 and a single email system for all university members. “We’ve now also run two sets of internal elections in digital form,” said Pfister.

The UNIT team is currently working on a system to allow staff to apply for business travel online and an online telephone system that will allow them to receive calls even when working remotely. Digital time tracking will be rolled out to all employees in the near future.

Before UNIT can introduce digital systems, it must first establish what processes already exist and how they currently work, and consider how they could be simplified in the future. To answer those questions, the University of Mannheim launched the program WANDELdigital in fall 2022. An eleven-strong digitization team has been working with program coordinator Sascha Adam to fully digitalize as many administrative processes as possible by 2027.

“There are currently a few points in our processes where we switch from digital to analog media or vice versa. Many of us will be familiar with it: You print out a form, fill it in, sign it, scan it, and send it by email, only for it then to be printed out and filed at the other end. We want to simplify those sorts of processes,” explained Adam. To identify areas where changes are needed, over the past few months the team has conducted around 150 interviews with university staff. Based on the feedback, they made plans for several digitalization projects. A schedule for those projects is currently being drawn up. “We tackle the most urgent things first. For instance, processes that take place every day or every week, that affect many people, and where our colleagues see particular potential for improvement,” said Adam. Projects that WANDELdigital is already working on include the use of digital signatures for contracts and a process to help new employees get off to a smooth start.

Besides coming up with ideas and plans for projects, there is also a need for staff to actually put those ideas and plans into action — and that is currently a big problem in the IT sector. “We are keenly aware of the shortage of skilled workers. It’s difficult at a time when there’s growing demand for new digital services and related support,” explained Bein. “So we’re looking at whether we could use AI in the future, for instance to answer queries sent to the central IT support team.”

UNIT is also planning a move to new offices. A new building with state-of-the-art technology and energy systems will be built in front of A5 over the next few years. “We’re going to build a modern, highly secure server room in the new building. We’re also putting great emphasis on flexible working: There will be offices of different sizes, areas for focused work, and a large, central staircase with places to sit,” explained Pfister. “Perhaps it’ll also encourage jobhunters to apply to UNIT,” added Bein, smiling.

Text: Jessica Scholich/ December 2023