Getting Involved – Projects of the University IT

HISinOne DOC

The HISinOne DOC introduction in 2024 will provide an additional standardization in Portal² in the field of campus management, namely the management of doctoral students. By introducing the standard module of HIS e.G., it will be possible to eliminate the maintenance work for the existing in-house development and digitize as many subprocesses of the doctoral student management as possible. In addition, it will also be possible to manage the events of the doctoral programs of the Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences (GESS) and the examinations of all doctoral students on Portal².

eFile

As part of the general digitalization strategy of the University of Mannheim, the eFile project team works on introducing the document management system (DMS) d.3ecm for the university, an electronic file system, and an electronic process for student administration. The project's goal is to digitally consolidate information that is only available in decentralized form, to make process handling more efficient, and to facilitate data access for users.

HIS GX Migration

The HIS GX Migration project was launched in the area of campus management with a term from February 2019 to March 2024 in order to introduce the HISinOne software for all processes related to the administration of applicants, students and examinations. This includes admissions, enrollment, disenrollment, academic leaves of absence, examination management (from registering individual students and allocating seats for the examination dates to entering and calculating the grades), printing graduation documents, and generating reports and statistics for the schools and the President's Office (inter alia, connection to BI Lehre). Standardizing the systems under the roof of Portal² will optimize these processes at the University of Mannheim.

ERechnung (E-Invoicing)

With the project “Einführung ERechnung für den FreiMann-Verbund”, the University of Mannheim and the University of Freiburg are working on a solution which allows them to process invoices more efficiently and to optimize the processes already in place. Advised by a sounding board, the project team is devising the digital e-invoicing processes for the universities. The sounding board consists of representatives of the schools, collaborative research centers, institutions and the staff council, who assist and advise the project manager by giving feedback and proposing ideas that can be taken into account in the project implementation.

Starting 18 April 2020, XRechnungen (German standard for electronic invoices, based on UBL) as well as PDF invoices will be received via a central e-mail address. In the fall 2020, the universities will join the PEPPOL network. PEPPOL is a European network used to transmit electronic invoices. It has several advantages over e-mail invoicing, especially in terms of security, which is why it is considered the preferred channel for electronic invoice receipt. The remaining number of paper invoices will be digitalized in order to ensure a uniform processing workflow.

Units responsible for issuing invoices can find further information on how to send e-invoices on the homepage of Division IV.

Information Security

A high amount of information is processed in daily research, teaching and administrative activities. With our information security project, we make an important contribution to establishing secure data handling at the University of Mannheim, and implement numerous measures to improve information security, and with it the protection of our data. In addition to the piloting of the renewed “IT-Grundschutz” (Basic IT Protection) of the Federal Office for Information Security, we are developing an incident management process, have launched an awareness campaign to raise security awareness, and offer workshops, for instance on how to create secure passwords.

Software Asset Management

In today's digital age, software has become indispensable for successfully completing various tasks. At the same time, software licensing conditions are becoming increasingly complex, and are permanently subject to changes. The software asset management (SAM) of the University of Mannheim covers software licensing management, governance and compliance, software infrastructure, as well as all related processes for planning, steering, controlling and protecting software and hardware assets. Focus is placed on optimizing the economical use of software while keeping the extent of services at the best level possible, and on ensuring a performant integration into the university infrastructure.

Computer-Assisted Facility Management

Facility management requires the use of various systems and processes, which can be supported by employing digital solutions. The project “Migration von HIS Bau auf die CAFM-Software Morada” (Migration from HIS Bau to CAFM software Morada) helps to optimize operations at the University of Mannheim by making it possible to design workflows more efficiently and to depict evaluations of the structural and technical setup of all buildings during a production stage. This allows the university to make decisions about repairs or procurements more quickly and to plan and implement these economically while keeping to legal provisions. Life cycle costs or costs for the use of buildings can be clearly depicted. This overview can be used as a basis for decisions early on when planning and constructing new or renovated buildings.

bwHPC: High-Performance Computing in Baden-Württemberg

The objectives of the project are to build a state-wide high-performance infrastructure, to coordinate support for users at all higher education institutions in using the high-performance computers of Baden-Württemberg, and to implement the measures necessary for this. The project bwHPC-S5 helps to achieve these goals as part of the current implementation concept for HPC, DIC and LS2DM in Baden-Württemberg. bwHP-S5 is funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and Arts of Baden-Württemberg.

bwCloud SCOPE

The project aims to develop and test a realizable and reliable concept for the federated virtualization of servers and services, and to develop a prototypical implementation of a cloud environment (“Hochschul-Cloud”). It is intended for user groups from all areas within universities, higher education institutions and research institutions. The project is embedded in the overall bwDATA concept, thereby continuously receiving impulses from other activities in the Land. We are delighted to have the opportunity to contribute to this project.

BelWü: Network of Higher Education Institutions in Baden-Württemberg

BelWü is short for “Baden-Württemberg’s extended LAN” and is the data network of all academic institutions in the Land of Baden-Württemberg. It creates a link between universities, higher education institutions, cooperative state universities, other academic and public institutions, schools, as well as public libraries. BelWü was conceived as a University IT service spread out over the entire Land, and we are delighted to be part of it.

bwCard

The bwCard project is carried out by the universities of the Land of Baden-Württemberg, supported by the Ministry of Science, Research and Arts. The aim of the project is to develop a federation which allows to integrate smart cards of other institutions into one’s own digital processes and services. To this end, common rules and a common infrastructure will be developed, sample services will be created and future developments examined. The idea is to establish a production community that offers higher education institutions an easy and cost-effective way of producing their own smart cards by pooling the know-how and infrastructure of all institutions of the Land.