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Teaching and Learning after the Pandemic: The Difficult Transformation of Digital Schooling

Digitisation in public sector institutions takes place under different conditions than digital innovations in the private sector or at home. There is a great gap between what has obviously been technically possible for a long time and what is being implemented in public schools, for example. Also great: The resentment that some people feel about this situation. And when it comes to children’s education and future opportunities, improving the status quo seems particularly urgent. The pandemic has shown that under the pressure of school closures – and with exceptions and special regulations in place – suddenly a great deal was possible where nothing had moved for decades before. However: privacy, data protection and data sovereignty are still important values. Our society cannot and should not simply give them up – even if, at first glance, digitally enhanced teachingworks better with Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Zoom and Co. than with data protection-compliant open source solutions and our own data centres. How do we get out of this dilemma?

Jan Marco Leimeister is Professor of Business Informatics at the Universities of Kassel and St. Gallen. The expert for change management and innovation processes has his eye on the Hessian schools as well as the workplace and adult education. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, he talks about insights from his observations – as a scientist who identifies structures and lines of conflict, and also as a father who has experienced a high level of digitalisation in all areas of life while being abroad with his children in Singapore. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, he discusses how digitisation can actually enhance teaching, where the responsibility for these transformation processes lies – and whether Singapore can serve as a model for us when it comes to digitisation in schools.

Episode 39 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Jan Marco Leimeister of Universität Kassel, 18 July 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the report and guidelines “Einführung eines DSGVO-konformen Videokonferenzsystems an hessischen Schulen.” from the project by the same name, which is discussed in the podcast: https://kobra.uni-kassel.de/handle/123456789/14514

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Preserving Digital Works of Art: A Challenge for Museums

What is the value of our cultural heritage created in the early days of digital technology, in digital form? If you look at the resources society allocates to the preservation of digital art, you might think: Not much. It is true that the digital age began with digital art. And recently, NFT art has revolutionised the market with record prices, stunning and upsetting those who had been considering themselves experts. But all this does not mean that the public recognises the value of digital cultural assets. At the very least, too little is being done to prevent its loss: Preserving, restoring and archiving digital art professionally, as we naturally do with analogue cultural assets – only a handful of people are even capable of performing those tasks. And for many works that are created and made accessible in the digital space today, strategies for restoration and archiving are completely lacking. Here, art has similar problems as science and administration: the analogue is durable, the digital – still – fragile.

Margit Rosen heads the Department Wissen – Collections, Archives & Research at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert explains the challenges for museums that hold digital collections and are responsible for them. She describes movements in the art scene, describes debates, discourse spaces and actors and shows how urgently society needs to become aware of the transience of its digital culture. With hosts Petra Gehring and Marlene Görger Rosen discusses the concrete questions arising in the process, how relevant the incursion of blockchain technology into the art and museum scene is in this context – and to what extent social media are also art media.

Episode 38 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Margit Rosen of ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, 27 June 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the website of ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe: https://zkm.de/en

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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How computers manage to deal with language independently

Powerful language models have become available to the broad world public, making the success of computational linguistics evident: Computer architectures have been developed there that are capable of processing intuitive human language. The behaviour shown by these systems is hardly comprehensible in detail, but the results they deliver are all the more impressive: Assistance systems equipped with these language models can be controlled and generate output as if they actually mastered language themselves – and their potential applications go far beyond the sensational chat bots that dominate public debates. However, GPT and related systems have by no means emerged suddenly. They are the result of a persistent learning process: first attempts to map language into algorithms failed in the mid-twentieth century not only because of a lack of resources or because crucial machine learning methods had not yet been developed, but also because the theories on how to abstractly grasp and systematise the meaning level of human language were insufficient. So what do developers of modern systems do differently from the pioneers of computational linguistics?

Chris Biemann is Professor of Language Technology at the University of Hamburg, where he heads the Language Technology Group and the House of Computing and Data Science. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert provides deep insights into the way modern language models are created and how they work, explaining linguistic theories that come into play. He makes comprehensible why the systems deliver such impressive results and describes what they can be used for in scientific contexts. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Biemann discusses what resources go into the development of such systems, what happens when language models are trained on nearly the entire internet – and what tasks computational linguists face now that they seem to have achieved their great goal.

Episode 36 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Chris Biemann of Universität Hamburg, 16 May 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the textbook “Wissensrohstoff Text – eine Einführung in das Text Minig” by Chris Biemann, Gerhard Heyer and Uwe Quasthoff: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-35969-0
Link to the website of the House of Computing and Data Science: https://www.hcds.uni-hamburg.de/hcds.html

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Managing manifold data – the example of biodiversity research

Research on plant and animal biodiversity faces a technical challenge: data collections generated observing nature and in the environmental or life sciences are huge and constantly growing. However, data types and data sets differ greatly, depending on the research field and practical circumstances. For biodiversity research, however, heterogeneous knowledge must be consolidated and also shared – to solve ecological problems, one needs the large pictures. In concrete terms, the challenge can be described as: How to extract as much data as possible from countless spreadsheets, handwritten documentation, satellite images, living organisms or dried plants, so that researchers can access this resource conveniently via an online portal? One thing is clear: this is a mammoth task. And in addition to technical challenges, there are problems of data law and science policy to solve.

Dr Barbara Ebert is the managing director of the German Federation for Biological Data. She coordinates the development of a platform for research data on biodiversity research in the “NFDI4Biodiversity” project of the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the biologist and data management expert explains the hurdles that have to be overcome and describes the sources from which data come together, what they are collected for and how they become usable for further research. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Ebert discusses where negotiation processes take place, which needs are prioritised and whose interests must be taken into account.

Episode 35 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Barbara Ebert of the German Federation for Biological Data, 4 April 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the data management portal of the German Federation for Biological Data: https://www.gfbio.org/

Link to the website of the “NFDI4Biodiversity” project of the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI): https://www.nfdi4biodiversity.org/de/

Link to a presentation on the compilation of data for the Red List of fish species: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeO_PONc3oA

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Machine learning in environmental monitoring

Rapidly advancing climate change has consequences for ecosystems and landscapes. Observing and understanding these changes is crucial for minimizing damage through smart action. Environmental monitoring that provides reliable data on the condition of forests, soils and peatlands – with as few gaps as possible – requires cooperative research which combines knowledge about ecological concepts with modern, computer-aided procedures, providing methods and technologies to extend specific date obtained from certain areas to larger scales: Machine learning techniques can be used to correlate data that foresters, landscape managers, and nature lovers find visible and measurable in the field with satellite and drone imagery of larger spatial areas. In theory, spatial and temporal gaps in the data could be closed using those methods – provided the mathematical models behind them are understood and the initial data with which the “artificial intelligence” learns actually matches the ecological question.

Hanna Meyer is Professor of Remote Sensing and Spatial Modeling at the Institute of Landscape Ecology at the University of Münster. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert explains how environmental computer scientists work and what typical tasks and questions are. She describes what data is needed to correlate satellite and drone imagery with real ecological systems and how machine learning helps to fill gaps in the data. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Meyer discusses what the limits of this mathematical extension of field data are – and the dangers of trusting the models too blindly.

Episode 34 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Hanna Meyer of Universität Münster, 14 March 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the article “Qualität globaler Umweltkarten auf dem Prüfstand” in wissen|leben (WWU Münster): https://www.uni-muenster.de/news/view.php?cmdid=12772

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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What can small and large drones do? On the automation of airborne devices

Popular hobby or threatening combat device: the public perception of so-called “drones” seems to be shaped primarily by these two areas of application. As flying film and photo devices, they are operated mainly by amateur pilots for fun. However, in the lower air levels these inhabit, they are getting company: more and more drones are put to professional, civilian use. And the latter, sophisticated airborne machines differ not only in shape, size and weight, but also require new regulations and safety considerations. The civilian use of modern drones could be helpful for example in medicine, agriculture, environmental protection or for sea rescue. But in order to achieve this goal not only technical but above all regulatory and infrastructural challenges must be addressed. After all, all of these aircraft – including hobby drones – are part of civil air traffic.

Uwe Klingauf is Professor of Flight Systems and Automatic Control at the Technical University of Darmstadt and has been working in the field of aeronautical systems engineering for many years. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert on automated flight systems talks about the state of the art, exciting current trends and challenges for research and development. He explains which safety considerations accompany the introduction of drones in urban areas, which processes have to take place in this and which applications are most promising. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Klingauf discusses new use cases for automated aircraft, aspects that will determine which developments will prevail – and what has become of the hype surrounding parcel drones and flying taxis.

Episode 33 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Uwe Klingauf of Technische Universität Darmstadt, 21 February 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the information page “Drone Flight” of the German air traffic control Deutsche Flugsicherung: https://www.dfs.de/homepage/en/drone-flight/

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Digital credit scoring: How data analytics decide to whom to lend and not to lend money

When we open a bank account, apply for a loan or sign a mobile phone contract, we are usually asked to agree to a credit check – in Germany for example with Schufa. Those who request such a score about us hope to get a reliable statement about whether we are likely to meet our financial obligations. But how does this information come about? Big Data and Artificial Intelligence make it possible to use completely new strategies for this question, with which more individual, possibly more precise or even “fairer” scores could be created. This is where FinTechs come in, which – unlike Schufa – could basically use our entire digital footprint for their scores: Automated processes find patterns and correlations with which aspects of all areas of life can be translated into financial data. Whether the results, which include not only income and payment behaviour but also musical tastes and jogging routes, always correspond to reality is one question – another is whether personal characteristics play a role that are actually affected by the ban on discrimination. Because, as studies show time and again: AI models seem to systematically discriminate against socially disadvantaged groups. And loan sharks can also profit from this automated perpetuation of social injustice, depending on the legal situation.

Katja Langenbucher is a professor of civil law, commercial law and banking law at the House of Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. One of her research focuses is the usage of artificial intelligence in the financial sector. In this episode of “Digitalgespräch”, the law expert explains the considerations behind the development of new types of AI models for scoring, which problems they raise or might help to solve, and where regulatory needs arise. Together with hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Langenbucher discusses differences between scoring providers, also in international comparison, and which justice problems require an open democratic debate, also at the EU level.

Episode 32 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Katja Langenbucher of Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, 31 January 2023
Further informationen:

Link to Katja Langenbucher’s guest article „KI-basiert ermittelte Kreditausfallrisiken mit Vorsicht zu genießen“ in Börsen-Zeitung: https://www.boersen-zeitung.de/kapitalmarktforschung/ki-basiert-ermittelte-kreditausfallrisiken-mit-vorsicht-zu-geniessen-91ff697a-673e-11ed-a8ee-76a419d2158f

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Privat- und Vollstreckungsrecht der Tokenisierung

Interdisciplinary Workshop

Thursday, 19 January 2023, 12:00 – 17:00 (CET)

Internal workshop hosted by the project group Tokenized Finance (ToFi) at EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht, Wiesbaden.

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Biochemistry meets computer science: How we can store digital data in DNA

Up to now, there are no forms of long-term digital archiving: the longest-lived hard disks and tapes are intact for no more than 50 years. After that, the data that was stored on them is lost. And even if chips and hard disks seem to be getting smaller and smaller, their compactness will reach natural limits at some point. At the same time, more and more important processes are taking place in the digital realm, we are collecting more and more digital data and developing new ideas and concepts to integrate information technologies into everyday life and technical processes. Our culture is also expressed in the digital, digital values and works are created. So the need for innovative storage media that can be used flexibly on the one hand and last for centuries and millennia on the other is there. One promising candidate in the search for solutions is DNA. How is it possible to translate digitality into this biochemical substance? And what new possibilities do then arise?

Prof. Dr Robert Grass researches and teaches at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zurich, where he works in particular on making DNA usable as a storage medium: He has co-developed a process in which DNA remains preservable in tiny glass beads for many millennia – and at the same time can be read when needed. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the scientist and inventor explains how this is done, what challenges exist and what future visions he and his colleagues have for the development of this new storage technology. He describes possible applications for industry and business on the one hand and the archiving of digital as well as digitised cultural assets on the other. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Grass discusses analogies between natural and technical processes and which difficult tasks absolutely must be solved if archives – especially digital ones! – are to be not only intact but also understandable in the distant future.

Episode 31 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Robert Grass of ETH Zurich, 20 Dezember 2022
Further informationen:

Link to film of the European Patent Office presenting and explaining the work of Robert Grass and Wendelin Stark as part of the European Inventor Award: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–4B0Pg4pf8 (English and French subtitles available)

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Responsible Interaction With Anthropomorphic Robots: An Interdisciplinary Challenge

Workshop

26 January 2023, 9:00 – 12:00 CET
leap in time Lab, Darmstadt

Forum for Interdisciplinary Research (FiF) at Technische Universität Darmstadt and ZEVEDI’s pilot project RoboTrust are organizing a workshop on “Responsible Interaction With Anthropomorphic Robots: An Interdisciplinary Challenge”. The joint workshop will discuss issues related to robot psychology, robotic transparency, robotic learning, liability, privacy, and emotion and context recognition. Furthermore, it will focus on the conditions for success of new robotic technologies and how possible obstacles can be overcome.

More details:
https://www.fif.tu-darmstadt.de/formate/formate_details_46016.de.jsp

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