Episode 1: IT Pioneer on the Way to the Digital University

00:00:00: [MUSIC]

00:00:10: Welcome to the very first podcast of From Campus to Cyber,

00:00:20: the official podcast of the German University of Digital Science.

00:00:23: In today's premiere,

00:00:25: we dive into the world of digital education and innovation.

00:00:29: I'm your host, Professor Dr. Mike Friedrichsen and co-founder of the German UDS.

00:00:33: And together with my colleague and also co-founder,

00:00:35: Professor Dr. Christoph Meinel,

00:00:37: we want to take you on the exciting journey of digital transformation

00:00:41: of traditional campus universities

00:00:43: with our podcast series From Campus to Cyber.

00:00:47: In today's first episode,

00:00:49: we want to dive into the vision of the German University of Digital Science.

00:00:53: Report on the first steps of operational implementation

00:00:57: and the expected launch of our university in fall 2024.

00:01:01: The German UDS is not just another university.

00:01:04: It is an institution that aims to bridge the boundaries

00:01:07: between traditional higher education

00:01:09: and the digital world of digital technologies.

00:01:13: With a strong focus on digital science,

00:01:16: our university offers a unique curriculum

00:01:19: tailored to the demands and challenges of the digital area.

00:01:23: In today's episode, From Campus to Cyber,

00:01:25: Christoph Meinel and I will explain our vision

00:01:28: for the future of digital education

00:01:30: and how we plan to turn the vision into reality.

00:01:34: We also take a look at what students and the scientific community

00:01:37: can expect from our university,

00:01:39: including our range of cutting-edge degree and micro-degree programs

00:01:43: designed to educate creators and leaders for the future.

00:01:48: Our journey has just begun.

00:01:50: And we invite you to be part of this exciting journey of discovery.

00:01:55: From Campus to Cyber is more than just a podcast.

00:01:59: So, Christoph, after more than 20 years

00:02:02: as the head of the Hasso-Plattner Institute,

00:02:05: you founded the German UDS with me.

00:02:07: Why is this new university so important to you

00:02:10: and why are you convinced that the new university

00:02:13: is so important in today's educational landscape?

00:02:18: Very early in my career as a professor,

00:02:21: I was interested not only in my research

00:02:24: in cyber security, AI,

00:02:28: but also in how to use digital technologies for teaching.

00:02:35: E-learning, tailor teaching, these are notions

00:02:39: which were in the air for more than 30 years.

00:02:44: But the problem was it was so easy to access the material

00:02:47: via the internet and to have the computer

00:02:50: and to, when everyone has time for learning

00:02:54: or for seeing such things, can do this.

00:02:57: But there was no fun.

00:02:59: The people did it, but no one was enthusiastic

00:03:04: about this form of learning.

00:03:07: And then there was a very important innovation.

00:03:11: This was when Sebastian Thrun, it was 2011,

00:03:16: said, "Here is my lecture.

00:03:17: "The lecture is next Tuesday."

00:03:19: And you can access this lecture

00:03:22: and the Stanford University via the internet.

00:03:26: And this was a dramatic change

00:03:30: because in this moment all the learners

00:03:33: were in the same time learning the same content.

00:03:39: And then if you combine this with a social media tool,

00:03:43: with social media functionalities,

00:03:45: that the people can start to interact with each other,

00:03:48: to say, "Oh, what he's explaining, I have other experience.

00:03:51: "This is a new idea. I never saw it."

00:03:53: And other things.

00:03:54: Then the people get fun because learning is some social thing.

00:04:00: We know this from a classroom in schools.

00:04:03: We know this from the seminar groups in universities.

00:04:07: So this momentum, not saying here the material,

00:04:12: look whenever you can,

00:04:13: but saying next week we will speak about this as this topic.

00:04:18: We will learn and offer you to understand this as this topic.

00:04:22: And then to combine this with the modern functionalities

00:04:26: of social media, then the people get fun.

00:04:28: This where the diverse power of the massive open online causes

00:04:35: of the MOOCs.

00:04:36: In New York Times, when I remember right in 2012,

00:04:39: said, "This is the year of MOOCs."

00:04:41: And really there was a great demand for all such offers.

00:04:47: So in HPI in that time,

00:04:50: also for me and my research group,

00:04:52: it was a moment to say, "Yes, this is exactly what was missing,

00:04:57: "this social component in learning."

00:04:59: And then we started because there was no learning management system in place,

00:05:04: we started to develop openHPI, the openHPI platform.

00:05:09: It was the first in Europe.

00:05:10: And then we start to offer content not so much for the students.

00:05:16: The students were in place, so this wasn't the need.

00:05:19: But for the people around which are confronted with the new developments

00:05:24: in digitalization, which has to understand these new technologies,

00:05:28: which have to understand the consequences for their work and for their life.

00:05:34: So we offered such causes, which I saw under the headline,

00:05:41: "Digital Enlightenment" to prepare people to deal with the digital transformation.

00:05:49: So in this MOOC platform, there was, at the end,

00:05:53: when I left it last year, more than 1.3 million enrolled learners.

00:05:59: And this gave or motivated me to think, "Could we do more?

00:06:07: "Could we do more than offer such single causes so people can get a certificate

00:06:12: but they cannot get a university degree?

00:06:16: "Can we deliver in this way, in a stature way, complete academic study programs?"

00:06:23: And we did a lot of research around this open HPI platform,

00:06:29: and so I am deeply convinced, yes, it's possible.

00:06:33: And so it's great that we met to say, "Let us implement,

00:06:38: let us implement the stream of a university

00:06:42: that completely offers study causes digitally."

00:06:48: Kirstoff, based on our experiences, what are the challenges with setting up

00:06:55: and running a fully digital university?

00:06:59: What are the main challenges for you?

00:07:03: So these MOOCs are comparable with lectures in a study course.

00:07:08: But everyone knows a university study is not only consisting of lectures.

00:07:13: There are seminars, there are projects, there are internships and other things.

00:07:20: There are interaction forums for the students.

00:07:26: So many such things, and if you want to provide a study course completely digital,

00:07:33: you not only have to provide the lectures digitally,

00:07:36: this is done by some campus universities.

00:07:42: No, you have to do all things up to the examinations,

00:07:46: the final examinations, master's thesis and other things.

00:07:50: And so it is a challenge, but we believe that we can manage it.

00:07:58: When you think about, "Is this necessary to do this?"

00:08:03: then you have to consider the advantages.

00:08:05: The advantages of providing people access to a university study,

00:08:11: on a completely digital way.

00:08:13: And there are a large number of people which have no chance to attend a campus university,

00:08:24: or a campus university in Germany, if you think at all the young people around the world,

00:08:31: in the countries of the social south, if you see people which are in profession already,

00:08:39: which have families and which want to continue to educate themselves,

00:08:46: to get a new degree for the next career step.

00:08:50: So then it makes really sense to think about and to try to implement this,

00:08:57: not as a new form of university, but as an alternative form of university.

00:09:04: Christoph, you mentioned courses and modules and degrees.

00:09:08: So what does the German UDS offer and what degree programs will the university start with?

00:09:14: So for our start program we designed study programs the following way.

00:09:23: On the one side, two MBA programs.

00:09:26: The idea is to provide a program which is one year, 60 ECTS,

00:09:36: and we offer MBA programs digital transformation and digital technology

00:09:44: for all those which need to understand the digital developments, the digital technologies,

00:09:51: the digital devices, complex programs to apply them in their professional environment.

00:09:58: In the branch where the people are working to bring the digital transformation forward.

00:10:06: Beside of that we have designed four master programs, master of science programs.

00:10:12: These are two years programs, 120 ECTS.

00:10:18: And this is in the topic digital leadership, applied AI, cybersecurity and advanced digital reality.

00:10:30: So very, very important topics which we think are helpful to prepare people

00:10:41: on the ongoing digital transformation phase which is characterized by artificial intelligence,

00:10:51: by its application to see what kind of potentials are there.

00:10:57: So the research has done a lot, but now we see that this goes into all areas of business and life

00:11:06: and we want to educate the people, not only here in Germany, but around the world,

00:11:12: to deal in the right way with these new technologies.

00:11:16: One important point, Christopher, in starting with a new university are the target groups.

00:11:22: Who are the target group of the German UDS in your opinion

00:11:26: and how will these target groups be addressed and at least how does the German university reach the students?

00:11:34: So we offer our programs for very different types of interested people.

00:11:42: The one big group I see is the group of people which have already studied in young years,

00:11:50: which are now in professional work, in enterprises, in society organizations

00:11:57: and need to drive the digital transformation in their company, in their area, in their organization.

00:12:07: Typically these are people which have family, which are in business life demanding and interested

00:12:18: and which have no time to stop this and say, "Now I go for a couple of years to a campus university."

00:12:25: So let's call this lifelong learning, continued learning.

00:12:30: This is the one group. The other group are digital natives, people that all think they do,

00:12:38: particularly young people in digital way, although they can study, have study offers in the digital way.

00:12:47: And the very large next group is all the people which have no chance to go to a campus university.

00:12:55: Particularly many, many young people in the countries of the social south

00:13:01: have not the financial means to come, for example, to Germany, to Europe for a study.

00:13:10: This is an even if study almost costs nothing here in Germany, they have to live here,

00:13:17: they have to travel here and others.

00:13:21: There are many people there which also have no chance to go to a university in their country

00:13:28: because there is not so much universities existing, it's difficult to reach.

00:13:33: But digital technology and our study at the end you can do with a smartphone.

00:13:40: I would recommend a laptop, but even with a smartphone such a digital study should work.

00:13:50: So to provide these people a chance to take their life in their own hands, to learn, to learn hard

00:14:01: and then to have the chance with a degree of German university,

00:14:06: degree of our German University of Digital Science, to get very good chances on the labour market

00:14:15: in their countries but also internationally.

00:14:19: So that they can improve their life situation, that they can improve the welfare of the personal welfare

00:14:32: as well as the welfare of their countries.

00:14:34: So I see that with such a kind of university we also provide a very important development help

00:14:45: for these countries in the global south.

00:14:49: For example to mention a last group in the newspapers, in the media you have a time read from people

00:14:57: that the big tech companies fire thousands of people.

00:15:03: And I know many of these people in the tech industry,

00:15:10: this were students, very gifted students, and they got very good offers from these companies

00:15:17: and many of them did not finish their study because it was so attractive to have a full income

00:15:25: and interesting topics so that these people are working in such big digital tech companies

00:15:36: but have no university degree.

00:15:39: Now they are fired for different reasons.

00:15:43: And for application and finding a job, it's difficult if you only can say

00:15:48: "Oh, I have lifelong work experience but you have no degree."

00:15:52: And for that reason it is good also for such kind of person to provide a completely digital study.

00:16:04: Christoph, over decades we worked with international companies and we worked with universities worldwide.

00:16:12: How do we colorate with other universities and industrial companies and organizations in what form?

00:16:21: Because you mentioned that we just work on the virtual way and how can we just integrate other universities

00:16:29: and other companies in our idea of a digital university.

00:16:35: Let's start with the cooperation of universities.

00:16:38: Our idea is that the professors come from around the world but they need not to come here, to Germany, to Potsdam,

00:16:46: to our university. The students are not, for the students, not necessary to come.

00:16:53: So also for the professors not. So these professors are researchers in research institutions.

00:17:00: They are professors in other universities.

00:17:03: So when we cooperate with them, we also have the chance to get access and to cooperate with their universities

00:17:14: with their research institutions.

00:17:17: When you speak about the companies, then a student to give an example in the course of a study of a computer science related topic,

00:17:29: they have to do a lot of projects, practical projects.

00:17:34: And for students every time it is very motivating if this project they have to work on come from real life

00:17:44: and are not simple exercises.

00:17:48: And so we will invite companies to give us and to give the students such projects and tasks

00:17:58: and get themselves involved in the interaction with the students,

00:18:03: which is particularly interesting for them to win professionals for their own company.

00:18:11: Because the students, when they finish the study, they are on the labor market.

00:18:16: They look for interesting jobs and companies which have, which they interact with others during the study.

00:18:27: Of course they are known and have good chance to get these people for their work.

00:18:37: You know, for our industry it is so difficult to find right persons with the knowledge in this modern digital technologies

00:18:46: and AI and cyber security and others.

00:18:49: So our university.

00:18:51: It does a lot to help all the industry to find the right persons which are educated as

00:19:02: we discuss with industry.

00:19:05: We discuss with German companies about study programs, about micro-degree programs, also

00:19:15: educational offers for the companies themselves.

00:19:19: I think the most valuable companies are getting access to the observance of our university.

00:19:28: Gustav, starting with the new university means that we are part of an education market.

00:19:36: There are obviously already a lot of online offerings from universities national and internationally.

00:19:42: Do you see the competition?

00:19:45: Are there comparable universities worldwide?

00:19:49: What distinguishes the German UDS from other universities and, for example, distance learning

00:19:55: universities?

00:19:56: At least, what is the USP of our German UDS?

00:20:00: I think the USP is that you can do your study completely digitally.

00:20:09: There are several universities that offer digitalized lectures, but for examination

00:20:16: or for the thing you have to campus.

00:20:20: There are also, for distance learning universities involved, but also these universities have

00:20:28: a mixed offer between digital offers and between things that happens on a certain location.

00:20:38: We have sought to design the program and provide a program which completely digitally can be

00:20:48: done, starting from the learning content, starting over the projects up to the examinations,

00:20:56: more can be done digitally.

00:21:15: I'm convinced that after a while, many others see there is a great potential and also will

00:21:22: follow our example.

00:21:24: We need to do it very carefully and with a lot of experience from a long life on the

00:21:33: other side in the campus university to provide a model that really gives the kind of substitution

00:21:43: of the traditional campus university.

00:21:47: Let's talk about another topic which might be very interesting if we just start with

00:21:53: a university.

00:21:55: Universities have a strong focus on research.

00:21:59: How does the German UDS promote research and innovation?

00:22:03: Especially if we just talk about the virtual room.

00:22:07: Very often we are asked about how can we just explain the daily research work.

00:22:18: Give us a short example how it works.

00:22:20: For our teaching we look for professors around the world, which of course are famous researchers,

00:22:28: this is a demand for professors in the field of AI cybersecurity, in the field of digital

00:22:37: transformation we offer in our study programs.

00:22:43: In difference to a campus university, these professors are not need to come here in a

00:22:49: certain place.

00:22:50: So what we think is the professors stay where they are, they can come from around the world,

00:22:56: they stay where they are and they interact with each other in the research with digital

00:23:03: collaboration tools.

00:23:05: There are a lot of such tools in place.

00:23:08: This type of professors working in the digital technologies are also interested in doing

00:23:14: this, they are interested to improve the tools which support and work a cooperation over

00:23:22: long distances and develop models for cooperation.

00:23:27: So in our university we have not foreseen faculties like in traditional campus universities,

00:23:37: we want to organize the research work much more agile in form of research centers.

00:23:46: Research centers, the professors can assign themselves to such a research center, it's

00:23:52: a start situation we have for such research centers planned, so they can assign themselves

00:24:00: to such a research center depending on what kind of research they are doing.

00:24:06: So for example let's think the research center about digital education, technologies for

00:24:12: digital education, professors which are working in VR or in virtual reality or augmented reality

00:24:20: activities, professors that work in AI, professors that work in any kind of technology which could

00:24:30: be used also for education.

00:24:33: They work together in such a research school.

00:24:37: Very important part of the work of professors is the supervision of PhD students.

00:24:46: So our professors are assumed to supervise PhD students and so in the research, each

00:24:54: research center runs an own PhD school where the PhD students of the professors of this

00:25:02: research school were supervised by all the professors of the research center.

00:25:10: This gives also a kind of interaction, so there are weekly research seminars, there

00:25:15: are retreats and other forms of cooperation so that the students and the professors, the

00:25:24: PhD students, this is a force of research work that they work together and in this way also

00:25:35: continue to develop the technological means they are using, improving the tools, improving

00:25:43: the forms of interaction, so the work of our university is also an experimental one that

00:25:50: we see, we want to educate people and we are interested to continue to develop digital

00:25:56: technologies so we try to develop these technologies in a way that the teaching can be improved.

00:26:04: That's interesting, Christoph.

00:26:06: Now of course the question is can you describe the difference between working as a professor

00:26:12: at the traditional university, comparing it with working at the German UDS, so what is

00:26:20: the daily work of a professor at the German UDS, what is new?

00:26:28: Let's start with what is not new.

00:26:31: What is not new is what is the work of a professor.

00:26:34: The professor has to prepare the teaching formats, lectures, seminars and others.

00:26:41: The professor has to coordinate the teaching work with his teaching assistants.

00:26:47: The professor has to do his research work and has to organize the research work of the

00:26:55: group, has to supervise PhD students.

00:27:00: All this can be done stationary in a physical place or can be done virtually.

00:27:08: So in that sense the main part of the work is not touched but it's a form to interact

00:27:16: with each other, to interact with the other professors, to interact with the students.

00:27:21: This is a digital interaction format.

00:27:25: Of course whether one can physically interact or digitally interact, there is a difference.

00:27:32: Both has advantages and disadvantages.

00:27:37: We have to learn in such an environment of our university is a living lab.

00:27:46: We have to learn how to compensate the disadvantages of the digital interactions and continue to

00:27:57: develop the advantages of the interactions.

00:28:01: So I am very optimistic that professors which are socialized in a campus university can

00:28:06: also be very good professors in a digital university.

00:28:10: So we talked about students, we talked about professors and the organization.

00:28:16: One point which might be interesting is we organized our study programs in quarters, not

00:28:22: in semesters.

00:28:23: Can you just describe a little bit about that?

00:28:26: The idea behind this is that interacting in a digital way is less formal like in a physical

00:28:37: way.

00:28:38: In a physical way you have to agree about the place, you have to agree about the time

00:28:45: to meet, to interact.

00:28:47: In a digital it's much more loosely.

00:28:49: You are much more free to say, "Oh now I have time to do this and now I have no time."

00:28:58: And this freedom which is provided by the digital form of presenting the teaching content

00:29:09: could also have the effect that some of the students lost their goal, lost their discipline,

00:29:23: they all now have to do other things.

00:29:26: So what we have to fight against this and to on one side to use the advantage of the

00:29:38: more freedom and on the other side to depress the disadvantages, we have the idea of Belegpomptom.

00:29:47: So when the students start and they start with the study program, they master program

00:29:52: where they have to get at the end 120 ECTS points for credit points for their teaching

00:30:01: efforts, we give them in the beginning of the study 180 Belegpomptom.

00:30:10: And then the students when they assign to a teaching module they have to pay exactly

00:30:19: the same number of Belegpomptom as they can turn during the lecture, during the teaching

00:30:29: event into ECTS points.

00:30:34: So in this way the students have to decide what I am in this moment, what kind of module

00:30:43: they start to work on.

00:30:47: This is the one side and the other side is that we want to give a small amount with semesters

00:30:53: but give smaller time periods, the quarters and be promised to the students every second

00:31:01: quarter the same lectures, the same modules are offered.

00:31:08: So that they get a kind of freedom to say all the next three months I have to do other

00:31:12: things and they are sure that they continue without any kind of loss.

00:31:18: Much flexibility is not given in a campus university and the longer the term is like

00:31:27: semester in the German universities the more difficult and the more time you lose when

00:31:35: you say or in the next weeks I have no time for study course.

00:31:40: So these are reflections on how to overcome the problems that could be combined to digital

00:31:52: offering from lectures compared to being on campus.

00:31:57: And by the way also there exist other countries where universities are based on three-master

00:32:05: or quarter.

00:32:06: So I think with our quarter it fits well to the digital offering of our teaching content.

00:32:13: Now we talked about all the academic offering programs and so on.

00:32:20: On the other side Christoph one challenge in this digital area is talking about lifelong

00:32:26: learning and non-academic offering programs.

00:32:31: So talking about micro degrees.

00:32:34: So what is this part in the German UDS?

00:32:39: What is the German UDS just offering in the non-academic port?

00:32:45: From the very beginning we took this very serious.

00:32:49: In Germany unfortunately universities do not provide, often do not provide formats for

00:32:58: lifelong learning.

00:33:00: And this is a pity because universities have the right teachers, have the right experience

00:33:08: in teaching.

00:33:09: Why only to give this to the young people which are the students and not to people which

00:33:15: are parallel to their study, parallel to their work, want to study.

00:33:22: So what we do, we offer all the modules the study programs are created of.

00:33:31: We offer this separately so that people which are only interested in for example a deep

00:33:36: learning lecture from our applied AI study course they can do this.

00:33:44: It is a five ECTS program, it runs over a quarter and they can get it a degree.

00:33:52: We call this micro degree program.

00:33:55: They can get a micro degree and this micro degrees can be combined at the end, can be

00:34:02: combined to a complete academic degree.

00:34:08: In this way we want to contribute to what becomes more and more important in the future.

00:34:18: In the past young people went to university and then they were prepared for four years

00:34:24: work time.

00:34:26: And in the future there is no work.

00:34:29: The people have to have study phases over their whole life and this micro degree programs

00:34:50: provide an entrance into this world because it is a fixed academic amount of learning

00:34:58: to do for such a micro degree.

00:34:59: This is five ECTS and with a combination of such micro degrees at the end you can prove

00:35:11: to have an academic course.

00:35:14: So this is some development in our time which is course by digital transformation and we

00:35:21: also need to find digital answers to do this and this is one.

00:35:26: Khrisov, now we described all the organizational background of the university and the last

00:35:34: question is what do you think are the hurdles during the next months and years and how do

00:35:41: you see the status quo of the German UDS in five years?

00:35:47: In the moment we have sufficient.

00:35:49: We are very convinced with this vision.

00:35:51: We work hard.

00:35:52: So we get access to the students.

00:35:55: We get a lot of interest from the potential professors.

00:36:03: So what is now our dream when it runs in practice in five years?

00:36:11: I think I am very satisfied because if you turn visions into reality, it is hard work

00:36:20: and it is not every time exactly possible to implement your original idea.

00:36:27: You have to learn from the hurdles.

00:36:31: You have to see how you can adapt to what is possible, to see or the vision can also

00:36:41: a little bit strong in another direction.

00:36:46: So in any case, I am convinced that we will provide a new university model, interesting

00:36:54: one, which in 50 years I think half of the universities will work digitally like our

00:37:04: plan is to implement the German University of Digital Science.

00:37:09: Thank you, Christoph.

00:37:10: So we will have to find a solution that we just can live 50 years longer.

00:37:16: But this podcast also is an experiment giving you an idea that one founder is asking the

00:37:26: other founder questions and I think it was a very nice experiment talking with you, Khrisov.

00:37:34: (upbeat electronic music)

00:37:37: (upbeat music)

00:37:40: (upbeat music)