The digitalization of university teaching will be strategically developed in conjunction with a network of experts. This is the aim of the peer-to-peer advice program, which is supported jointly by the Founders’ Association and the CHE (Centre for Higher Education Development) in the University Digitalization Forum. The University of Stuttgart was selected from among 56 universities by a jury at the start of this new advisory program.
The University Digitalization Forum will provide strategic advice for six universities per year until 2020. The focus will be on creating an internal dialogue about the strategic issues of digital teaching and learning. In the first year, the program will assist the Bochum University of Applied Sciences, the Technical University of Braunschweig, the Dresden University of Applied Sciences, the University of Göttingen and the Heidelberg University of Education, alongside the University of Stuttgart. These higher education institutions will be given assistance as part of an advisory program and will receive support from their “peers”, i.e. experts from other universities and from business and society.
In their proposals for teaching development, the selected universities set out clearly formulated objectives and demonstrated a tangible development and transformation process for teaching in the digital age.
Dr. Simone Rehm, Vice Rector for Information Technology (CIO) at the University of Stuttgart, was delighted by the success of the proposal and said: “We now have the opportunity to arrange the transfer of individual eLearning projects to an overall strategy for university education in the digital age within a structured advisory process in partnership with the Vice Rectorate on Teaching.”
Dr. Jörg Dräger, Director of the CHE (Centre for Higher Education Development), emphasized: “Universities must now decide how they want to develop their teaching in the digital age and what value digitalization will be accorded in their profile. We want to support this process with peer-to-peer advice.”
“The exchange of information among peers as ‘critical friends’ gives universities ideas and feedback for the development of university teaching, to formulate a contemporary pedagogical response to social and technological changes,” added Volker Meyer-Guckel, Deputy Secretary General of the Founders’ Association.