News

11. March 2025

Good ideas for digital offerings

In one module, students work on ways to provide services for students that can be used via digital platforms.

In the winter semester 2024/25, students from the Faculty of Management and Cultural Studies explored digital solutions designed to simplify or enrich student life. Under the direction of Prof. Anna Prenzel, a series of ideas were developed in the "Models and Applications for Digital Transformation" module to open up new possibilities for providing services, advice and communication for students with the help of digital platforms. The projects were presented as part of a poster exhibition at the "House of Managers" event on January 15, 2025 at Club Nostromo in Görlitz.

Overall, a pleasing number of ideas emerged that can be taken up, further developed and implemented in the course of the digital transformation in the higher education sector.

Prof. Anna Prenzel, Head of the "Business and Computer Science" degree program
Projects on the topic of "mental health of students"

Students at our university can take advantage of the psychosocial counseling offered by Studentenwerk Dresden. In the project groups of Lea Schneider, Caja Jannasch, Aaron Thiel, Maxi Raymund, Anne Keskowski and Jacqueline Quosdorf, proposals were developed to give students even broader access to helpful information:

  • Providing a knowledge base with recommendations and methods on the topics of self-management and self-care as well as coping with stress and excessive demands.
  • Providing an exchange forum where students can seek advice (anonymously if necessary) and support each other.
  • The option of making an online appointment with the counseling staff.

The sports activities on offer at our university also contribute to students' (mental) health. The project group led by Romy Wolf, Selina Henker and John Ledzbor has developed an idea for integrating small sporting "challenges" directly into the timetable: Students can use an app to sign up for group challenges (e.g. 20min. yoga, meditation, ...), which take place between classes in specially designated rooms in the teaching buildings. Participation earns points that can be redeemed for attractive rewards

Projects on the topic of "student housing and living"

In order to make it easier for students to find accommodation, Theresa Lidzba, Franziska Thiemig and Josefine Radtke came up with the concept of a platform on which places in halls of residence are presented together with housing offers from other landlords who also want to appeal to the target group of students.

The app idea from Marvin Hein, Sophia Thomas, Paula Sebastian and Nele Schumacher ensures that everyday life in the halls of residence runs smoothly. They can well imagine the Studierendenwerk providing a special dormitory app for contractual and organizational matters relating to the dormitory, including, for example, tenant repair requests, landlord announcements or contract changes.

Alina Hanisch, Vivien Seifert and Paul Becker would like to see an online marketplace by students for students - for study materials, housing equipment, food, carpooling and much more. Exclusive access for university students should increase security, ensure fair prices and make it much easier to find suitable offers.

Students with artistic ambitions benefit from the idea of a regional platform where artists, event organizers and venue providers can network with each other (Jule Borghardt and Lena Wallwitz).

Projects on the topic of "Communication and exchange between students"

The Matrix service provides all members of the university with an opportunity to communicate in chat rooms. Students Christin Scholz, Luise Kieschnick and Maria Kriegel wondered how the service could be used more widely across the university. They suspect that structuring the matrix server in advance could provide users with more orientation. The group's idea is aimed at consistently mapping the structure of the university virtually through Spaces and the rooms they contain. This could look like this, for example:

  • Spaces are created for the individual degree programs.
  • Each space has a uniform room structure that can be flexibly expanded. For example, rooms could be provided for the individual year groups, the individual modules and rooms for cross-year exchange. Discussions can be held in topic-specific threads within the spaces.

It would be advantageous to differentiate between rooms in which students remain among themselves and module-related rooms in which the focus is on the exchange with lecturers. To a certain extent, central administration of such a virtual image of the university is required in order to maintain the room structure and regulate access to certain rooms.

Tatjana Demidova, Claudia Kaube and Amelia Morawski came to similar conclusions. Proposals were made to expand the university app to include a forum for students and prospective students. In order to further reduce the load on the university mailbox, academic surveys, which are often sent via mailing lists, could also be bundled in the app. A gamification concept could be used to attract even more participants to the surveys.

Another project group (Nadine Hilbert and Vincent Großer) also took up the topic of an exchange forum. The focus here was on an exchange opportunity for students before, during or after a semester abroad.

Photo: Dr.-Ing. Anna Prenzel
Prof. Dr.-Ing.
Anna Prenzel
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
02826 Görlitz
Brückenstraße 1
Building G II, Room A106
+49 3581 374-4286