Projects
A fundamental part of InnoMA is the “Innovative Digital Teaching” fund. In regular calls for applications, teaching staff can apply with their project ideas which are then selected for funding by a selection committee. Besides financial support, the benefits of funding also include assistance with queries related to teaching excellence and the use of technology to help with the implementation of projects. In addition, projects will be scientifically evaluated. Here, you can find an overview of the projects funded so far:
Current Projects
System Feedback Programming Environment II
- School of Business Informatics and Mathematics
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Frederik Armknecht
- Project summary: As an additional resource for the course “Computer Science I,” online exercises will be integrated into ILIAS to complement the exercise sheets that are already in use. To achieve this, two new types of tasks will be developed that are currently not available in ILIAS. One of them will allow for the visual representation of structured data, while the other one will enable the selection of multiple answers from a menu in longer exercises, facilitating the detection and correction of coding errors. The aim of these online tasks is to provide targeted individual feedback on the current performance levels of individual students as well as to offer a wider range of exercise material for targeted, in-depth practice. Furthermore, these new types of tasks will be available for use university-wide, beyond this specific course.
Digital Exercise Material for the Introductory Course in Public Business Law
- Department of Law
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Michael W. Müller
- Project summary: It is the aim to expand the range of digital exercise material available for the introductory courses on Public Business Law I and II in the master’s programs at the Department of Law. This expansion involves expanding the existing digital teaching materials with the involvement of students and under the guidance of student tutors. Specifically, the focus is on expanding a deck of Anki flashcards, adding in-depth podcasts and creating interactive exercises. This digital material is a supplementary resource that students can use on a voluntary basis, aiming to support students in acquiring necessary introductory knowledge, independently reviewing it, and assessing their own levels of understanding. Ideally, students will continue using the flashcard system on their own throughout their studies for their master’s degree.
Tax Knowledge Quizzes
- Business School
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Christoph Spengel
- Project summary: The aim is the development of online knowledge tests that will allow students to independently assess the knowledge they acquired by using the Tax Video Library. The Tax Video Library is an already completed InnoMA project that supplements traditional classroom teaching by providing students with fundamental concepts of taxation across various courses. The newly developed knowledge tests are intended to be used to assess specific content of individual videos while also covering bodies of knowledge of entire modules to help students internalize broader contexts. In the short term, these knowledge tests provide students with the opportunity to check their levels of knowledge whenever and wherever they want and to independently identify and address gaps. In the medium term, the knowledge tests can ensure a uniform level of knowledge among students and facilitate a move towards an inverted classroom concept. The use of the videos and tests by other universities as well as companies is envisaged.
Use of digital tools to enhance discussion, judgement, and reflection skills in the context of contentious socioeconomic issues (DigiDiskURsS)
- Business School – Area of Economic & Business Education
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Carmela Aprea
- Project summary: In a climate of increasing polarization and looming societal division, it is crucial to be able to think impartially, critically, and in a nuanced manner about contentious socioeconomic issues, as well as to be able to appropriately exchange ideas about such topics. This is where the DigiDiskURsS project comes into play. Through the use of digital discussion platforms, the project aims to develop, test, and evaluate a teaching concept designed to enhance students’ discussion, judgement, and reflection competencies. By using digitally supported discussions covering examples of contentious socioeconomic issues (such as inheritance tax, organ trafficking), students develop not only an awareness of the complexity of socioeconomic matters, but also the ability to differentiate reasoned arguments from mere opinions, comprehend other perspectives and support or refute them based on various sources, and to recognize the conditional nature of one’s own position, potentially elaborating or revising it as necessary. In addition to the digitally supported means of discussion, the concept also involves the creation and use of video tutorials on selected general skills (such as the structure of arguments, active listening, or the adoption of other perspectives).
GeR gamified
- Business School
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Philipp Dörrenberg
- Project summary: For the course “Basics of Financial Accounting” (GeR), we aim to develop an online learning game. Within the context of a gamified learning environment, students from different disciplines will experience and learn about accounting in a practice-oriented and playful manner. Based on the structure of the course, the game is designed to accompany students from case to case and cater to the individual needs of the large number of diverse students.
Individual Content Recommendation for Learning Success
- School of Business Informatics and Mathematics, Business School – Area of Economic & Business Education
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Heiner Stuckenschmidt, Prof. Dr. Dirk Ifenthaler
- Project summary: In courses, all participants typically receive identical learning material, regardless of prior knowledge and ability. The aim of this project is to develop a recommendation system which will be trialled in two different courses. Based on online feedback provided through ILIAS, this system will supply students with additional material, such as practice exercises or examples, individually tailored to prepare them for the exam.
LingQuiz
- School of Humanities
- Project manager: Prof. Dr. Nicole Altvater-Mackensen
- Project summary: This project aims to create a digital learning platform for self-study to help students consolidate their understanding of core concepts in linguistics. Through quizzes, students will receive targeted learning content to address gaps in their linguistic knowledge. It will help compensate for the heterogeneity in students´ knowledge observed in subsequent thematic seminars. The learning platform consists of individual modules for each core linguistic area, starting with quizzes to test essential knowledge which are followed by study material, including videos, readings, and exercises. Its goal is to establish the platform as an additional digital resource that empowers students to pursue their study goals independently and whenever they want to.
Expansions of digital teaching and self-learning material in the Department of Mathematics
- School of Business Informatics and Mathematics
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Leif Döring
- Project summary: Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Mathematics has been strategically expanding the range of digital self-study material to enable greater individualization of learning at one’s own pace and with one’s own learning needs in mind. The objectives of this project are to develop a digital training program aimed at improving proof comprehension for undergraduate students and to enable automated digital feedback on programming exercises for advanced students in application-focused lectures.
Adaptive Mastery Testing
- Business School – Area of Economic & Business Education
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Dirk Ifenthaler
- Project summary: This project aims to develop and implement an Adaptive Mastery Testing Tool (AMT) for the university platform ILIAS. This tool will enable students to engage with course content in a self-regulated way, to receive feedback on their learning process based on formative self-assessments, and to expand their subject-specific competencies through targeted repetition. By integrating the AMT into the existing Learning Analytics System LeAP (Learning Analytics Profile), students and instructors can use this tool for targeted (self-)evaluation of teaching-learning processes and the achievement of learning objectives.
Talking to the machine: Reflection training and self-directed learning with ChatGPT
- School of Humanities
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Hiram Kümper
- Project summary: The project aims to raise students’ awareness regarding the opportunities and weaknesses of working with artificial intelligence (AI) by training them to thoughtfully interact with ChatGPT as an assistant and a partner for bouncing off ideas. Given the increasing competencies of AI and ChatGPT, which is seen as a game changer in the field of education, there is a need for a learning module that offers student- and teacher-centered dimensions and that is integrated into courses. The goal of the project is to equip students with the necessary skill set to competently interact with the chatbot, while highlighting both opportunities and risks involved in collaborating with ChatGPT.
Digital journey through world literature
- School of Humanities
- Project management: Melanie Tissot, M.A.
- Project summary: This project will adapt the concept of the “Reading List 2.0” for English and American Studies as well as Romance Studies and will then integrate it into courses. An interactive platform provides access to the carefully curated digital reading lists, thereby making successful learning and reading through the use of reading lists as a teaching concept accessible across the philologies at the University of Mannheim. The digital learning units will be developed according to the subject profiles and offer structured reading paths through world literature through the use of keywords and links. The Wiki structure is hosted on the university platform ILIAS to motivate students. This project aims to strengthen students’ reading competencies and illustrate connections between literatures.
Reading list 2.0
- School of Humanities
- Project management: Dr. Sandra Beck
- Project summary: A reading list for independent study of canonical texts of German-language literature has long been a part of German Studies programs, not only in Mannheim. As part of this project, we are taking the reading list out of obscurity and giving it new meaning for students by creating a digital platform that is easy to navigate, by providing additional information about literary works, and by giving students opportunities to engage in discussions with instructors and other students about the texts they have read. The reading list 2.0 is meant to accompany students in their reading throughout their studies. The project is designed as a guide for structured self-study. The basis is a reading list with keywords. Students can work through the reading list in an order of their choosing and at their own pace. Input-oriented contributions about the titles based on current research results provide initial impulses in varying formats and guide students through the reading process, for example through the use of key reading questions or the presentation of interpretive approaches.
Completed projects
Modern history of Ukraine: the path of Eurointegration
- School of Humanities
- Project manager: Dr. Ivan Balykin
- Project summary: One of the main goals of the project is to improve the knowledge and understanding of the European integration process of Ukraine and the EU. For this, it is necessary to create a platform with materials about Ukraine’s path to the EU. In order to experience the immense visual material about the modern history of Ukraine (photos and videos from the “Orange Revolution” as well as the “Revolution of Dignity” and the current conflict) the students will be able to adapt their smartphones to use as VR cardboard glasses during lectures. This allows the students to get a fuller understanding of the situation, as well as receive a new approach to understanding contemporary sources and situations. The material will be better learned by students than through the classical verbal transmission of information through a form that is interesting to students. By using digital technologies, it is possible to show and explain to students far more than without them. Video and audio content, pictures and maps, documents, websites, etc. With the usage of VR headsets, students can dive into the topic. Thus, students are going to be more involved in studying and deepen their understanding, of both the situation in general, as well as of the people in Ukraine. Students could take the VR headsets with them and use them while individual lessons. Thus, students could maintain immersive learning at home.
Digitization of Socratic Teaching
- School of Humanities
- Project management: Dr. Sengül Celik
- Project summary: In this project, current events are linked to introductory philosophical literature. This is supposed to help students recognize the importance and practical relevance even of ancient texts. To this end, various digital media are being prepared to support the course content, including edited news clips, quizzes and other helpful material regarding the most important text passages.
Graphic-Novel-Based Case Studies on the Future of Work and Workplace Learning (ENGAGE.EU Signature Course)
- Business School – Area of Economic & Business Education
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Andreas Rausch, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Seifried
- Project summary: The aim of this project is to develop and implement the multidisciplinary and collaborative ENGAGE.EU Signature Course “Future of Work” together with WU Vienna, NHH Bergen and other international partners. In this English-language module, students collaborate in virtual small groups and deal with the future of work. The Area of Economic & Business Education contributes the perspective of the “Future of Workplace Learning,” in which students acquire skills to evaluate and design concepts of what work that promotes learning and motivation might look like in the future. Students work on authentic business cases in which they refine theory-based workplace learning measures by coming up with an implementation roadmap. These cases are embedded in software-based graphic novels, which students complete. From the Fall Semester 2023, the seminar will be offered to students in the Master of Business Education (as part of the new elective subject “Corporate Learning”) and in the MMM as well as to external students as part of ENGAGE.EU. The course will also be evaluated.
Text to Data – Data to Insight
- School of Humanities
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Hiram Kümper
- Project summary: The project aims to provide students of history, and the humanities in general, with access to digital tools. To this end, corresponding content will be developed as part of various advanced seminars and developed as OER resources that remain usable in the long term. In the first phase, students will be taught methods on how to digitize various text forms in ways that are both application-oriented and clean. Access to large amounts of data – whether generated by institutions or by the students themselves – enables new approaches and questions that can be handled with the help of digital analysis tools. Therefore, the second phase is dedicated to teaching basic tool-based data evaluation options based on specific use cases.
Digital self-learning system on the foundations of grammar
- School of Humanities
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Angelika Storrer, Prof. Dr. Angelika Wöllstein
- Project summary: The project builds on the existing inverted classroom concept of the exercise course and supplements the in-person sessions with a modular digital self-learning system (SLS) organized by topic, which consists of two interlinked components. On the one hand, digital learning materials are used to teach and consolidate the grammatical basics. This is supplemented by a motivating visualization of selected grammar topics in the form of learning videos. Secondly, the CoTutor system is used to carry out adaptive learning progress reviews.
CoTutor
- School of Social Sciences
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Stefan Münzer
- Project summary: A digital learning question system (CoTutor) is offered to accompany the course “Introduction to Educational Psychology” to enable individual learning. There is a particular focus on better understanding and dealing with misconceptions by providing students with detailed feedback whenever they incorrectly agree with distractors. The system, which also has an integrated repetition mechanism (retrieval practice), was tested over the course of two semesters. The analysis of digital learning process data provided evidence-based insights into student use. The aim is now to further develop this system in order to specifically support metacognitive processes, self-regulated learning processes and elaborative cognitive learning strategies.
Rep²Plus
- Department of Law
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Friedemann Kainer
- Project summary: This program supports Bachelor students enrolled in the Business Law degree in their preparations for the civil law state examinations by providing them with digital study material they can work on together with others in learning groups. Through the use of an online database, they are provided with weekly learning units that help them to structure their exam preparation. This is complemented by online workshops, so-called “exam clinics” to improve case-solving strategies, and forum-based feedback from lecturers on the learning platform ILIAS. Due to the extremely positive feedback from students, the model was extended to the graduate program to help students prepare for the criminal law and public law exams.
Project eMAth
- School of Business Informatics and Mathematics
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Leif Döring, Prof. Dr. Martin Slowik and Prof. Dr. David Prömel
- Project summary: The Department of Mathematics has expanded the range of self-study material in order to enable greater individualization of learning at one’s own pace and with one’s own learning needs in mind. Lectures and exercises are recorded and then made available online. Cross-references and additional information help address individual learning needs. Individual consultations with lecturers and the use of learning analytics tools support students’ learning progress during the semester. To find out more about the project, please click here.
System feedback programming environment
- School of Business Informatics and Mathematics
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Frederik Armknecht
- Project summary: The project aimed to provide students with automated feedback on their level of knowledge on particular aspects of the course “Computer Science I” (such as programming, algorithms, data structures) and thus supplementing the existing tutorials and exercise courses. For this purpose, a learning environment was created that automatically generates new exercises and provides informative and content-related feedback. While the teaching concept is based on existing experience, some subject-related adjustments were necessary. The aim is to provide the best possible support for students from different subject areas, some of whom have considerably different backgrounds and levels of knowledge. In the long term, adapting the learning environment to be used in other computer science courses is conceivable.
Developing a web-based, hybrid learning environment
- Business School
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Christoph Spengel
- Project summary: This joint teaching project in cooperation with Darla Moore (South Carolina), ESSEC (Singapore campus) and Fundação Getulio Vargas (Rio de Janeiro) uses material dealing with fundamental course content designed for asynchronous self-study to particularly address the problem of dealing with different time zones. There are also integrated online quizzes containing comprehension questions to monitor individual learning progress (supported by learning analytics applications) as well as Q&A sessions with mentors. In addition, there is a hybrid course that takes place to delve deeper into application examples by focusing on various case studies. The integration of supporting digital material enables the formation of student groups across all continents. In the end, a hybrid/
online presentation of the case studies is scheduled to take place in front of a jury. The long-term aim is to apply this concept to other courses with an international focus.
Responsible Research & Innovation
- School of Humanities
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Hiram Kümper
- Project summary: The teaching concept “Humanities in Business and Society: Project Work as a Training Field for Responsible Research & Innovation,” which had already been successfully established as a pilot project in the field of history, has now been scaled up to be used across the entire school’s network of courses and transferred into digital and hybrid formats. This made use of the concept of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) and integrated an extension to the RRI toolkit. There are links to the field of the data sciences (Responsible Data Literacy) and the field of economics (Sustainable Cultural Entrepreneurship).
Educational data literacy
- Business School
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Dirk Ifenthaler
- Project summary: This project addressed new opportunities for data-based school development. Based on the educational data competence model, a two-stage study module was implemented and tested: the first stage was to offer an online course inspired by xMOOCs (Extended Massive Open Online Courses), which illustrated the potentials of data-based school development. In the second stage, the students implemented a project focusing on data-based school development during their high school internship semester that is part of their university studies. Workshops accompanied the projects in the internship semester. The learning module was supported by an initiative of the state of Baden-Württemberg to promote data-based school development.
Innovative digital teaching in Analysis I, II
- School of Business Informatics and Mathematics
- Project management: Prof. boshi. Li Chen and Prof. Dr. Martin Schmidt
- Project summary: The aim of the project was to provide better support for students enrolled in the Analysis I and II courses. To this end, regular teaching evaluations and surveys were carried out. These made it possible to better adapt the course to the needs of the students. For example, topics that students had rated as particularly difficult were discussed again in certain tutorial sessions. For this purpose, regular videos were created. Some of these dealt with in-depth explanations of the solutions to those exercises, which students had rated as being particularly difficult. Others focused on certain central lecture topics as well as fundamental concepts from other courses, enabling students to work through these topics in preparation for the lecture. Online consultation sessions were also on offer, where students were able to discuss their questions about the lecture, the exercise sheets, or the videos.
Virtual Learning Designs for Business Education (ViLD)
- Business School – Area of Economic & Business Education
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Viola Deutscher, Prof. Dr. Carmela Aprea
- Project summary: The aim of the project was to create a stronger link between theory and practice through the implementation of Virtual Learning Simulations (VLS). As part of selected business education modules, prospective vocational school teachers experience the benefits of VLS in their own learning process through the use of the LUCA Office Simulation app (luca-office.de). In addition, during the course, students are supposed to develop their own virtual lessons for their (future) learners, which will train them in their educational work through working with virtual learning simulations.
Design of teaching scenarios in a virtual classroom setting
- Business School – Area of Economic & Business Education
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Seifried
- Project summary: As part of this project, a virtual classroom was set up in which prospective vocational school teachers can experience a realistic teaching environment. This gives students the opportunity to design a sample lesson aimed at explaining a particular concept and then interactively giving this lesson to a group of virtual students, thus gain teaching experience. Virtual pupils can be controlled in real time. Video recordings make it possible to analyze the sample lesson in order to identify potentials for improvement.
“Social video learning” – Video annotation in ILIAS
- Business School
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Bernd Helmig
- Project summary: The aim of this project was to collaborate with UNIT in order to design and implement a digital function allowing students to watch interactive videos in ILIAS. This digital function was piloted in an inverted classroom format in one of the chair’s courses. The aim of the project was to enrich online learning videos with social and interactive elements and thus make it easier for students to independently work through the content. The lecture video acted as the central element of digital learning. Students had the option of posting questions or comments anywhere in the video and reacting to their fellow students’ contributions. At specific points in the video, students were able to check their learning progress using self-check quizzes. To make it easier to understand the learning content, the lecture videos were also enriched with supporting information, such as references to current events and encyclopedia entries.
Academic Practice Nuggets
- School of Social Sciences
- Project management: Dr. Sandra Morgenstern
- Project summary: In order to balance the heterogeneous level of knowledge of students, this seminar employed an “inverted classroom.” This way, the classical teacher-centric approach to knowledge transfer was moved out of the seminar. “Learning nuggets” in the form of short videos enabled independent digital learning both at the students’ own pace and flexibly adapted to their prior knowledge. The animated story in the blackboard design, told from the perspective of students Hans and Amanda, is intended to be motivating and provide easily accessible knowledge about advanced scientific thinking and working. For more information on the academic practice nuggets, please click here.