Episode 9: Micro Degree Programs - Talk with the German UDS Founding Presidents

00:00:00: Welcome to our podcast episode about micro degree programs.

00:00:16: Next to the full degree programs offered at the German University of Digital Science,

00:00:21: the individual teaching models of the various study programs are offered individually in

00:00:26: bundle blocks as interactive online micro degree programs. These programs, running for three months,

00:00:32: are teaching offers for continuous education and lifelong learning and provide learners with

00:00:39: valuable knowledge and skills. Professor Dr. Christoph Meinl and I as founding presidents want to

00:00:45: discuss the basic structures as well as the benefits and usefulness of micro degree programs.

00:00:51: Welcome Christoph. Hello Mike. Before we delve into the topics, give us a brief overview about the

00:00:57: status quo of the German UDS and the starting programs in October. Applications are now possible

00:01:02: in all programs, right? Yeah, we will start on 1st October. And what are the main problems these days?

00:01:08: We are preparing what we are doing. We have to do a lot with the studio and with all the technique

00:01:15: because it's a lot of content that need to be produced as well for the study programs as well

00:01:21: for the micro degree programs. And of course we will be ready. We will start and it is a big

00:01:28: challenge and challenge to solve challenges make you stronger. Yeah, it's a great experience and

00:01:36: we are all excited and all the six are master programs are well prepared. And on the other side,

00:01:43: we have some micro degree programs. So Christoph, can you explain what is a digital micro degree

00:01:49: program and how does it differ from the traditional degree programs? So then UNI is offering study

00:01:56: programs that is usual and everyone expects this. But beside of offering studying programs,

00:02:02: these master programs in AI, in cybersecurity, in digital transformation and leadership,

00:02:08: we also offer a new type of educational content so-called micro degree programs. They are inside

00:02:18: the study, considered as modules. So the students have to absolve them, have to finish them to get

00:02:25: their degree. But independent from the study program, we offer these micro degree programs

00:02:32: for people which are interested in continuing education, in industry, in education that want

00:02:39: to learn, for example, one special type of AI or security features. So we will offer this micro

00:02:46: degree programs for everyone who is interested. It can book this micro degree programs independently

00:02:53: from the study programs. These micro degree programs are teaching over three months. Every

00:03:03: quarter we offer new such micro degree programs. And this is the important fact. At the end,

00:03:12: you get a micro degree, which five ECTS points. So the continuing education content

00:03:19: become transparent and treatable. Okay, so we have the typical master degrees and we have the

00:03:28: micro degree programs. And if we just go to our websites, so we see the one and the other,

00:03:34: is there a relationship between those? Yes, there is a relationship from the inside view.

00:03:41: So what is offered as micro degree program to the people which are interested in continuing

00:03:47: education is offered for the students inside their study programs. For that reason, the finishing

00:03:55: such a micro degree program, finishing a module gives ECTS points, the credit points,

00:04:02: which are collected and which are needed to get a university degree. And this micro degree programs,

00:04:10: they give the learner the certificate with five ECTS. So everyone knows, okay, this is about 125

00:04:18: learning hours to make this a continuing education topic. And then one can start to collect such

00:04:26: micro degrees, five points for each. So if you do over the years 12, it counts to 60 and 60 ECTS

00:04:36: points. This is what you get if you do an MBA. So in this way, people from outside over time can

00:04:44: get an MBA degree by doing such micro degree programs. And in this way, we help to better

00:04:54: structure this continue education offerings. Today, there are certificates you get, and nobody

00:05:01: knows what is a well being weekend or what is continue education one year strong calls.

00:05:08: So we measure it with a five ECTS. And everyone knows transparently, okay, this is this amount

00:05:16: of learning which was necessary to get this degree. And it is measured with a university view. So it's

00:05:23: not a say no name, a continuing education agency. It is a university accredited university, which

00:05:30: gives this five points for such a micro degree program. So to understand what is behind that,

00:05:35: so in our discussions with the companies, we talked about continuous education and lifelong

00:05:40: learning. So if I understand it right, it's supporting of these concepts by this micro degree

00:05:47: programs. When we look to the very big companies, telecom, Siemens, Volkswagen, they have large

00:05:55: learning units inside. But if we look to the small and middle sized companies, they do not

00:06:02: have resources for a large learning department. So they use what's offered on the market.

00:06:09: And exactly here, we want to bring high quality content for this for these companies, which

00:06:16: not can start own teaching programs and do this. The advantage with this five ECTS, which is combined

00:06:26: to a micro degree, which you get if you're finishing such a program is that everyone in the

00:06:32: European university system, European educational system knows exactly this certificate has that

00:06:40: and that value. The content, okay, comes from the name, for example, be of micro degree programs

00:06:46: in very different branches of artificial intelligence, of cybersecurity, of VRR technologies,

00:06:56: or on the other side on transformation topics. And those people can specifically for their needs

00:07:05: and for their interest, doing a continuing education unit over three months. So it is

00:07:12: offered completely digitally. So they can easily integrate that in their life, in their family

00:07:19: life, in their professional life. And this is a big advantage of the German UDS at all that we

00:07:26: offer all this teaching in a digital way on a university level, high quality, which is recognized

00:07:35: around us, I would say in the Western world, because German European degrees are also accepted

00:07:42: in North America. Chris, this is a very important point, discussing about the academic background.

00:07:48: So very often people say, we don't need any academic background, because we need the

00:07:53: competences as soon as possible. So you named it that we as a German UDS are offering high

00:08:00: potential education. So what would you say to companies who say, why do we need academic background?

00:08:06: So in the IT area, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and all these topics,

00:08:14: there is not an academic world and a world of application. Here it's very much mixed, and you

00:08:21: can see this easily, that the large companies have research departments, which are leading

00:08:28: in this IT research worldwide. So also all our study programs, all our teaching offers are

00:08:38: very relevant to the actual development in this new technology in IT digitalization,

00:08:47: which becomes a very, very important aspect of all professional work, but also in the academic

00:08:55: world. It is important to train the people also to evaluate digital technologies, digital techniques

00:09:04: with an academic view, a view to experiment, to learn to experiment, to learn really to make

00:09:12: quality assessments, not from the stomach, but from the knowledge of the technology,

00:09:20: from knowing what kind of techniques are developed for such tests and for such quality

00:09:26: giving. So that these people trained in that way in the study programs of our university as well

00:09:34: in the micro-diki programs can be sure that they can adapt what they have learned immediately

00:09:42: in their professional life, in their company, in their organization.

00:09:45: Chris, if we published in our scientific report something about our innovative teaching methods

00:09:50: and what is new at the German UDS, so can you point out maybe in three points what are the

00:09:56: innovative teaching methods in these micro-diki programs, what are the main learning experiences

00:10:02: there? It's a good question, it sense to describe how we offer this micro-degree program. So it's a

00:10:07: run over three months, so the next start in 1st October and then we have inside these three months

00:10:15: and eight weeks which we call lecture weeks. Here's the knowledge which is presented,

00:10:21: is presented in form from short videos, short videos 10-15 minutes. They are offered weekly,

00:10:30: so each week 10-12 such short videos are offered for the learners and each of these videos is

00:10:38: followed by a self-test so that the people can test by means of multiple choice questions or

00:10:45: others, can test whether they completely understood what was presented in this short learning video.

00:10:52: Then there is a weekly homework, so overall the stuff which was presented in a week,

00:10:58: The students, the learners have to show, have to prove.

00:11:02: that they understood this. And then after this eight week there comes an

00:11:08: exam where all is tested. But this is only the presentation of the knowledge.

00:11:14: Now the people have also to learn to deal with to get hands-on experiences.

00:11:19: So around this lecture offers there are virtual projects done by student groups.

00:11:27: There are interaction formats with the teacher, with the teaching team, with the

00:11:33: other learners. So to share experience to answer questions, to

00:11:40: with experience to learn from others how you in your company will apply this,

00:11:46: how we can do this. So to share experiences and from such formats, although

00:11:53: it's all done digitally, one gets not only theoretical knowledge but also

00:12:00: practical knowledge experience. One gets hints how to how to apply this, what the

00:12:08: people have learned then in practical life. First of all sounds well prepared

00:12:12: and very interesting. On the other side the people or the employees or the

00:12:17: companies ask the question why should I do a micro-truggy program. So how can

00:12:22: obtaining a micro-truggy from the German UDS impact a learners career. So we are

00:12:29: in discussion with many companies and we advise them to offer their people such

00:12:36: learning possibilities. This continued education becomes more and more

00:12:41: important today and in the future. It's no more enough to study as a young person

00:12:47: and then a life young you can apply this because the digitalization leads to an

00:12:54: increasing production of knowledge, knowledge which was valid today, tomorrow

00:13:01: is no more valid. So the people need to know the actual status and actual

00:13:08: reasons of in this affairs. So such learning need to be a part of the whole

00:13:14: professional career and companies can help their employees by offer them

00:13:20: possibilities for such example for such micro-truggy programs. It is an offering

00:13:27: which fits to the daily life of the people so they have not to go to a

00:13:32: university or to a continued education agency. They can combine this in their

00:13:39: daily life, they can do it where they are with the professional life and in that

00:13:46: way for example with a promise if you do every two to three such micro-degrees

00:13:52: then you can get after a couple of years an MBA degree. I think is something

00:13:58: which is very interesting for the human resources the HR departments in the

00:14:04: companies to develop to help to develop their employees in the direction what

00:14:11: they need in innovation for their own company's life and in that sense that

00:14:18: this continued education comes from a university helps that it can be used in

00:14:24: combination to get higher university degree for example MBA. I know from

00:14:31: companies in US particularly in the digital world there are many offers

00:14:36: there is a shortage of people and so the company is trying to get also other

00:14:40: people other companies people and so the way to do it today is to give to

00:14:46: promise more money so also the own company has to give the people new more

00:14:51: money. The problem with the more money is after a couple of months the person do

00:14:56: not realize that they got more that they get more meanwhile so the companies

00:15:01: and I started this to say in the US they start to think how to create an binding

00:15:08: of the people to the company by such educational offers only the salary will

00:15:15: not help to buy into people particular in this area in our area with

00:15:20: digitalization and the digital industry and the digital companies where it's

00:15:25: also easy for the people to move from one to another so I would wish that also in

00:15:30: Germany the HR departments would realize that this is a mean to create

00:15:37: identification of the employees with their companies if they see we are not

00:15:43: only working from the company but also the company cares about us cares about

00:15:47: our development helps us to qualify to do higher jobs to make steps forward in

00:15:55: the career so Chris of now you explain what is the background of micro degree

00:15:59: programs you explained why it's necessary and useful for the companies and for

00:16:04: the employees we have on our website I think eight micro degrees these days so

00:16:09: how can the people now enjoy all the programs so in 1st October 24 we start

00:16:15: you mentioned it with eight with the first eight micro programs they will

00:16:20: offer it also in later quarters to give an overview about the content we have on

00:16:26: the one side for disciplinary things for example

00:16:29: cybersecurity fundamentals or artificial artificial intelligence logical

00:16:35: structures we offer immersive at micro degree program about immersive

00:16:42: technologies but we also offer micro degrees for what we call professional

00:16:48: skills for the development of professional skills design thinking is one of

00:16:52: this micro degree programs a complex problem solving is another one so this

00:16:58: way we provide a knowledge about the basics of the digital world so how to

00:17:04: design and how to develop the digital world another micro degree program is

00:17:10: about all this modern computing technology cloud technology complex

00:17:15: software systems please come to our website it's very simple you go to the

00:17:20: micro degrees there is the description of the micro degrees and then you can

00:17:24: book a micro degree program easily and then you can start to become a

00:17:30: specialist in this topic in the time from 1st October to end of December I

00:17:37: like to add it's German minus UDS.de yes you know if we just talk about

00:17:43: boards we would talk about after the game is before the game and here is it

00:17:46: after the micro degree programs is before the micro degree program so

00:17:50: Chris what are the future plans for expanding or evolving the micro degree

00:17:53: programs offerings the German UDS. So we start now with the first quarter of

00:18:02: our study programs we start with the first aid micro degree programs each new

00:18:08: quarter new micro degree programs come on top so within two years we have an

00:18:15: offer of about 40 micro degree programs which can be can be started two times a

00:18:23: year so there are micro degree programs we start on the first December or first

00:18:29: July and then there are other micro degrees which start on 1st April and

00:18:35: 1st September. October sorry. October yes.

00:18:39: Christoph we as founding presidents are talking every day about the future of

00:18:45: education and so the last question is how do you see the rule of digital

00:18:50: education involving in the next few years. So we work hard for this digital

00:18:57: channel of education this is a new one really a new one many other educational

00:19:05: institutions play with this have some offers of a module of others but

00:19:13: consequently to offer all in digital form this is new we are the first at

00:19:19: least in Europe and we want to develop this we have to learn so with the

00:19:26: experience of the first quarters we learn to do it better we want to use the new

00:19:32: technologies to support the learning support for example we want to use AI

00:19:39: models you know this example we have done twins from the professors and then the

00:19:47: twins are trained by a large language model are trained to the specific of the

00:19:53: micro degree program or the module of the content and then the students can

00:19:58: interact whatever they want with this we twin of the teacher of the professor

00:20:05: about the topic and ask questions and such new technologies also in HR in VR

00:20:13: technologies we want to investigate and immediately use it also for educational

00:20:19: purposes and so our young professors we we want to become professors at the

00:20:29: German UDS are very enthusiastic about this combination between a researcher

00:20:35: on the one side and teaching this is a duty at the University of the other side

00:20:39: so I'm very optimistic that we open a new door to a very important branch of

00:20:46: educational efforts I think all the people are just feeling our interest

00:20:51: yes man and the development of our German UDS so I think all the people know

00:20:57: that they now have to delve into the German UDS micro-duty programs Christoph

00:21:03: thank you very much I think all the things are clear and so thank you very

00:21:07: much for this discussion it's a great pleasure and we are happy when you want

00:21:12: to trust us and come to us as to a book micro degree program or to register for

00:21:19: study program as soon as possible thank you thank you for joining us on this

00:21:24: episode of from campus to cyber we hope you found today's discussion insightful

00:21:30: and inspiring as we continue to explore the frontiers of digital education

00:21:35: until next time let's keep pushing the boundaries of knowledge and innovation

00:21:40: stay curious stay connected and we'll see you soon on from campus to cyber

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