License for Digital Competence

LiDiCo has been running at TU Dresden since April 2024. With the completion of the first project phase at the end of March 2026, it is a good time to pause and look back: What have we achieved? What have we learned? And where do we go from here?

Certificates and participation: The goals were achieved

A key project goal was to award at least 120 certificates. This target was achieved and even slightly exceeded. Around 126 certificates were awarded across all courses, from the pilot in summer semester 2024 to the end of winter semester 2025/26. Students from over 20 different degree programs were reached, both in German-language and English-language course formats.

Support for female students

A particular focus of the project was the promotion of female students. With a proportion of women of around 74% across all courses, this goal was clearly achieved. In the course formats, women were encouraged in a targeted manner to take on leadership roles in their teams - in a protected setting that offers space for development and self-awareness. Successful participants received an additional certificate documenting their leadership skills.

More than just courses: Research and cooperation

Alongside teaching, the project team also carried out research and cooperation. A TU-wide survey with almost 800 participants and a series of interviews with career starters provided valuable insights into which skills are actually in demand during the transition to a career. Collaborations with the Join Science mentoring program, the Smart Peers project on open educational resources and the FIT:Ter project to support international students have enriched the content and structure of the offer.

Outlook: The second project phase has begun

LiDiCo does not end with the successful completion of the first phase; the second project phase has already begun. The focus is now on transforming the proven VCL course concept into a flexible self-learning format. The aim is to prepare the developed content and materials in such a way that they can be used independently of fixed semester dates and without direct course supervision - for students who want to determine their own pace and focus. This should not only increase the reach of the offer, but also ensure its long-term availability beyond the project duration.

We look forward to the next phase and will keep you up to date!

Anfang März reisten wir nach Valencia zur INTED 2026. Die INTED 2026 war die 20. Ausgabe der International Technology, Education and Development Conference und brachte über 700 Bildungsexpert:innen aus rund 80 Ländern zusammen. Drei Tage lang wurde diskutiert, präsentiert und vernetzt und wir waren mittendrin.

© Lydia Kilz

Was ist die INTED und warum ist sie relevant?

© Lydia Kilz

Die INTED gilt als eine der größten Bildungskonferenzen Europas und ist seit zwei Jahrzehnten ein jährlicher Treffpunkt für Lehrende, Forschende und Technolog:innen aus aller Welt. Im Fokus stehen aktuelle Innovationen in Lehre, Lernen und Bildungstechnologie, von didaktischen Methoden über E-Learning bis hin zu den neuesten Entwicklungen rund um Künstliche Intelligenz im Bildungsbereich.

In diesem Jahr war KI das dominierende Querschnittsthema der gesamten Konferenz. Kaum eine Session, in der es nicht um den Einsatz, die Chancen oder die Herausforderungen von KI in Hochschule und Unterricht gegangen wäre – ein klares Signal, wie sehr das Thema die internationale Bildungslandschaft gerade bewegt.

LiDiCo mittendrin: Vorträge, Poster und Session Chair

Das LiDiCo-Team war nicht nur als Zuhörende vor Ort, sondern hat das Programm aktiv mitgestaltet. Mit zwei Vorträgen zum Thema KI-Resilienz haben wir unsere Forschungsergebnisse einem internationalen Publikum präsentiert und konnten dabei spannende Diskussionen anstoßen.

© Maike Krohn

Anne übernahm als Session Chair die Moderation einer kompletten Konferenzsession und bereicherte damit den fachlichen Austausch auf einer weiteren Ebene.

© Anne Jantos

Ergänzend dazu haben wir zwei Poster gezeigt: Eines widmete sich der Frage, wie die Persona-Methode Studierende zu aktiven Treiber:innen ihrer eigenen Lernprozesse machen kann. Das andere stellte vor, wie problembasiertes Lernen durch den Einsatz von Rubrik-Matrizen gezielt unterstützt werden kann.

Impulse, die wir für LiDiCo mitnehmen

Neben unseren eigenen Beiträgen haben wir die Konferenz natürlich auch intensiv genutzt, um zu lernen und uns inspirieren zu lassen. Besonders gewinnbringend waren für uns Themen rund um Kompetenzen und Fähigkeiten im digitalen Zeitalter, kollaboratives Online-Lernen, teambasierte Lernformate sowie Assessment und Evaluation. Hier haben wir viele konkrete Impulse mitgenommen, die direkt in die weitere Entwicklung von LiDiCo, sowohl auf Projektebene als auch in der Kursgestaltung, einfließen werden.

Ein bestärkendes Erlebnis: Wir sind weiter vorne, als wir dachten

Einer der vielleicht unerwartetsten Effekte der Konferenz: die Bestätigung, dass wir an der TU Dresden im Kontext der Hochschulbildung und Lehrinnnovation schon sehr weit sind. Vieles, was international gerade als zukunftsweisend diskutiert wird, setzen wir hier bereits um oder haben es konzeptionell bereits durchdacht. Das ist kein Grund zur Selbstzufriedenheit, aber definitiv ein Anlass, stolz auf das Geleistete zu sein.

Internationalität als Mehrwert

© Anne Jantos

Was eine Konferenz wie die INTED besonders wertvoll macht, ist der internationale Austausch. Aus 80 Ländern reisten Expert:innen nach Valencia und mit ihnen kamen 80 verschiedene Bildungssysteme, Perspektiven und Erfahrungsschätze. Für LiDiCo waren diese internationalen Begegnungen Gold wert, denn wir konnten wertvolle Verknüpfungen und Perspektiven mitnehmen, die unsere Arbeit bereichern und internationaler machen.

Fazit: Gut angelegte drei Tage

Die INTED 2026 war für LiDiCo mehr als eine Dienstreise. Sie war eine Plattform, auf der wir unsere Arbeit sichtbar gemacht, wichtige Erkenntnisse gewonnen und internationale Verbindungen geknüpft haben. Wir freuen uns, die mitgebrachten Impulse nun in die Projektarbeit einfließen zu lassen und sind gespannt, was daraus entsteht.

© Maike Krohn

How do you design research when didactics takes priority? LiDiCo shows that flexible, pragmatic research and high-quality teaching are not contradictory, but can enrich each other.

A flexible research design

LiDiCo's research design is characterized by a high degree of flexibility. Originally, an ambitious design was developed, but this had to be fundamentally adapted several times during the course of the project. Some research questions were discarded and new ones included because the focus of the evaluation shifted, the didactic concept was further developed and it became apparent that the original design could not be fully implemented with the available resources.

The focus was always on one clear priority: LiDiCo is primarily a didactic development project. Didactic considerations and the success of the project took precedence over the rigor of the research methodology. This enabled a flexible response to changing requirements, but also required conscious methodological compromises. One example: the originally planned analysis of students' self-reflections was not evaluated as research data. Instead, the reflections were integrated directly into the practical work in the digital skills driving license, where they directly served the learning process.

From semester to semester: a growing design

In the first round in the winter semester 2024/25, the focus was on two questions: Can students develop their digital skills as part of the seminar? And how do they perceive the teaching and learning process? This was recorded by a before-and-after survey on self-assessment of digital skills and a standardized teaching evaluation by the Center for Quality Analysis (ZQA) at TU Dresden.

The design was further developed in summer semester 2025. The question about skills development remained, but the survey instrument was adapted. Instead of a general self-assessment, students were now asked in a targeted manner what changes they had perceived as a result of the seminar. A new question was added as to whether the seminar had promoted skills relevant to starting a career. In addition, specific aspects of the didactic concept were explicitly addressed, such as the influence of working with representative characters, communication via Miro and the interdisciplinary groups.

In the final winter semester 2025/26, all three questions will be addressed again. This will allow comparisons to be made between the different rounds for the first time and help to validate the previous results.

A university-wide online survey of all TUD students was conducted independently of the individual teaching events: How well do students feel their studies have prepared them for starting a career? And to what extent do they feel digital skills are promoted during their studies? This survey provided important reference values for classifying the LiDiCo results in the overall university picture.

Area of conflict: teaching data and research data

The experiences from LiDiCo reveal a fundamental area of tension: data generated in the teaching context, such as self-reflection, group work and evaluation results, have a dual function. On the one hand, they serve didactic development, on the other hand, they represent potential research data. This raises methodological and ethical questions.

A key issue here is transparency: students must be informed clearly and comprehensibly about what their data will be used for, not only through a formal declaration of consent, but also through genuine communication about the aims and limits of the research. There is also the issue of power asymmetry: because students are dependent on lecturers, there is a risk that they will feel obliged to participate. In LiDiCo, this was counteracted by conducting all research surveys anonymously and completely independently of the performance assessment.

Deliberate methodological compromises in favor of didactics are evident: Research findings cannot be viewed in isolation from teaching practice in such development projects. Research accompanied teaching in LiDiCo less as a standardized procedure than as a reflective process - visible in the continuous adaptation of the survey instruments to didactic changes. The success of the project is measured primarily by its didactic effectiveness and the sustainable promotion of digital skills, not by the flawlessness of the research methodology.

Conclusion: Pragmatic research as an attitude

LiDiCo's research design stands for a pragmatic approach: methodological compromises are not a flaw if they are made consciously and transparently. The protection of students, the open handling of data and the clear separation between teaching and research functions are central hallmarks of quality.

LiDiCo shows that didactic innovation and responsible research can go hand in hand if you are prepared to set clear priorities and not subordinate the promotion of learning to academic interests without losing sight of their potential.

How can individual challenges at the start of a career be combined with the promotion of teamwork, cooperation and collaboration? This question is at the heart of a didactic intervention developed as part of the digital skills driving license. The innovative approach relies on working with characters that represent different types of students in order to promote students in a targeted manner and prepare them for real-life professional requirements.

A core element of the intervention is that the participants first assign themselves to one of several characters that correspond to their own student type. These characters form the basis for the group composition. The special feature is that the tasks - such as creating a LinkedIn profile - are not solved individually, but collectively for the respective character.

Although the tasks are originally designed for individual work, a collaborative approach is deliberately chosen here to encourage students to work in teams and to encourage them to engage with the perspectives of others. Working together on a character encourages students to reflect on their own personality. Students should then be able to transfer the experience they gain from working together to their own personalities and their individual careers. This transfer process is central to the success of the intervention and combines professional, social and personal learning objectives.

Working with the characters therefore not only offers a creative and practice-oriented opportunity to strengthen digital and social skills, but also to build a bridge between theory and practice - an important foundation for the challenges of the modern working world.

Experiences with working with characters: A reflection

In order to gain more in-depth information about how students work with the characters and what their experiences are, students were asked to describe their experiences of working with the characters as part of the course. The following key questions were given:

• Why did you choose your persona?
• How easy or difficult was it for you to put yourself in the perspective of your persona?
• What did you learn about yourself by working with the persona?

Even taking into account the fact that reflection was an obligatory task, the reflection responses show that working with characters goes far beyond a methodical exercise: it promotes self-reflection, empathy and the examination of central questions of professional orientation in the digital age. The following key points can be identified in particular:

1. character selection through personal identification and professional proximity

The majority of participants chose their character based on biographical or professional similarities. The proximity of the degree program or common interests was cited as a particularly common reason:

"I chose Aisha because she was most similar to me in terms of degree program."

Shared life situations or even the same name also played a role in the selection.

2. ease of changing perspective with a high degree of similarity

Identification with the character had a significant influence on how easy it was to change perspective. Where there was a high degree of agreement, empathy was easy:

"It was quite easy, because her story was so close to mine. I didn't feel like I was 'acting' as someone else."

It was more difficult when the reality of the character's life differed greatly from their own, for example in the case of parenthood or professional fields outside their field.

3. lack of professional orientation and uncertainty as a common theme

A central motif was uncertainty regarding one's own career path. Many participants projected their own doubts and fears onto the character:

"That uncertainty when you read job advertisements and ask yourself, 'Am I even qualified for this?"

Especially with characters like Mara or Cam, the job search was experienced as a real, imminent challenge.

4 Digital visibility and self-presentation as a new insight

Working with the characters sensitized many to the importance of digital self-presentation. Platforms such as LinkedIn and the conscious design of one's own online presence were recognized as important, previously neglected topics:

"I have started to reflect on my own digital appearance: Do I have to 'perform' all the time? Or is it possible to set clear boundaries?"

Digital competence was not only understood as technical knowledge, but also as conscious communication of one's own identity.

5 Character as a mirror: self-reflection and personal growth

Many participants experienced a "mirror effect": examining their character led to new self-awareness and helped them to recognize their own strengths and weaknesses:

"I was often irritated as to why Leonie has such low self-esteem - only to realize that I think the same way."

The character thus became a catalyst for personal growth and reflection on her own career goals.

6 Work-life balance and social framework conditions

Characters with complex life situations, such as Aisha with children, encouraged reflection on the compatibility of family, studies and career. This opened our eyes to structural challenges and the need for flexible working models:

"We considered that Aisha should do a home office job so that she could be more flexible."

7 Group work as a source of learning and diversity of perspectives

The group work was predominantly experienced as enriching. The exchange of different perspectives promoted both professional and social learning:

"The group work was very enriching, as everyone* has the opportunity to contribute individual strengths."

Challenges such as coordination or language barriers were also discussed, but were mostly described as surmountable.

Conclusion

The qualitative content analysis shows that working with the characters encourages students to engage intensively with questions of professional orientation, digital self-presentation and personal development. It promotes empathy, self-reflection and the ability to see uncertainty as an opportunity for growth. In particular, the topics of digital visibility, professional uncertainty and the comparison of ideal and reality proved to be unifying elements across all groups.

This year, we were once again able to realize an exciting cooperation with the Service Center Studium. As part of the Join Science mentoring program, we held a workshop on digital empowerment. Join Science accompanies students from the STEM field who are aiming for an academic career in various phases of their scientific career.

Over the course of three workshop days, we worked with ten participants on their own digital skills, organization using digital tools, digital communication and visibility, networking and scientific writing with digital tools. There was also a photo shoot for profile pictures on LinkedIn or job applications and plenty of time for hands-on exercises.

We would like to thank the participants for their active participation, the exciting questions and impulses and for trying things out together, during which we also learned a lot!

In recent years, we have gained extensive experience in implementing the License for Digital Competence - a virtual collaborative learning format designed to reach international students in a targeted manner.

Our accompanying study showed that this target group has specific needs. For example, many international students fear that they will be at a disadvantage when starting their careers and would like to be more closely integrated into the university environment and offered more courses in English.

When we talk about international students, we mean that they come from different countries or cultures and therefore have different expectations and ways of thinking. It is precisely this diversity that makes virtual, collaborative learning formats particularly enriching - but also challenging to design.

Against this background, the question arises as to which factors contribute to the success of VCL with international students. In the following, we summarize our key findings and make them available for the implementation of comparable formats with collaborative, interdisciplinary and/or digital elements.

1. Linguistic and cultural integration

• Heterogeneous group formation: International students do not want separate groups, but active involvement in mixed teams. This can promote intercultural learning and prevent social isolation.
• Bidirectional language support: While German students often want to improve their English language skills, many international participants strive to improve their German language skills. Ideally, learning settings should enable an exchange in both languages.
• Bilingual materials and communication: Course materials, assignments and key information should be consistently provided in German and English. Synchronous communication (e.g. kick-off event) should also be moderated in a language-sensitive manner.
• Trusting and low-hierarchy communication culture: An open and low-threshold communication style is particularly important for international students. It makes it easier to address challenges and uncertainties without fear of judgment or discrimination.

2. Career orientation

• Promotion of skills relevant to the labor market: Skills such as teamwork, problem-solving skills, interdisciplinary cooperation and (digital) collaboration should be explicitly trained and reflected upon in order to facilitate integration into the labor market.
• Learning formats with a realistic reference: In order to gain initial experience with typical work situations, students should deal with concrete challenges of the labor market in formats such as case studies, simulations or project work.

3. Empowerment

• Focus on strengths through self-reflection: In order to become aware of one's own strengths and gain confidence in them, learning settings should provide opportunities to try out one's own strengths. These can be recognized, named and further developed through self-reflection.
• Strengthening self-efficacy and visibility: Experiments with different presentation formats (e.g. pitch videos, LinkedIn profiles, digital portfolios) help to show self-confidence and make one's own expertise visible.

4. Networking and community building

• Interdisciplinary and/or international group work: Working with students from other degree programs and/or other cultures to solve problems together broadens perspectives and promotes diverse approaches to solutions.
• Sensitive moderation of group processes: Teachers should facilitate group processes as needed and regardless of group composition, recognize conflicts early on and promote constructive, appreciative collaboration in international and interdisciplinary groups.
• Peer learning and process transparency: Groups should be encouraged to document their work processes openly (e.g. in Miro boards) in order to learn from each other and build up collective knowledge.

5. Didactic design

• Clear structures and unambiguous communication: International students benefit from clear timetables, well-structured tasks and regular consultations that allow for orientation and follow-up questions - while at the same time maintaining the openness of VCL settings.
• Flexible materials: Learning materials should be designed to be realistic and at the same time offer the possibility of adapting them to individual needs. This ensures that different backgrounds and perspectives are represented in the best possible way.

6. Organizational support

• Support with credit transfer: Teachers should assist with clarifying credit transfer issues where necessary, as this is often fraught with uncertainty for international students.

If you are interested in an exchange or would like support in implementing the aforementioned success factors in your personal teaching/learning setting, please do not hesitate to contact us:

In the summer semester, a total of five interdisciplinary and intercultural teams worked together for 12 weeks on the "Driving license for digital skills". Together, they created digital posters, presentations, videos, reflections, project reports and LinkedIn profiles.

It was particularly exciting for us as teachers to observe how the students developed very individual implementations from identical tasks. Each team gave their results a personal touch. The fact that a single task leads to five completely different approaches shows how versatile and original students can be when given the necessary freedom. In our course design, the focus is on the process of joint, digital development and its reflection rather than on pure results. The teams had the freedom to go their own way and try out different approaches and tools.

Over the weeks, we were able to recognize a visible development of the participants: They grew with the new challenges within the case study, worked on their ideas and strengthened their skills step by step. In the end, they left the course with an increase in knowledge, skills and self-confidence.

We would like to thank all participants for their great commitment over the last few weeks and wish them all every success on their future journey.

On July 2, 2025, we had the opportunity to present our experiences with the use of artificial intelligence in university teaching. We were able to raise valuable questions and initiate a discussion on higher education policy.

Main findings at a glance:

• LLMs as didactic co-designers: learning objectives can be linked to Bloom's taxonomy through targeted prompting and tasks can be formulated in the shortest possible time. This significantly reduces the amount of preparation required.
• Napkin.ai for visualizations: The tool is excellent for quickly and free of charge graphically displaying complex course sequences or content - vivid visualizations that promote understanding are created within seconds.
• Automated creation of rubrics: Assessment matrices can be generated at the touch of a button, which significantly improves the transparency and traceability of the assessment criteria and makes the assessment process more efficient.
• Didactic responsibility remains with the teacher: Despite the use of AI technologies, the responsibility still lies with the teachers, who should also act as role models in dealing with AI. They play a key role in promoting a reflective and responsible use of AI.

© Anne Jantos

What do the students say?

Our participants show a high level of acceptance of AI applications in teaching as well as a reflective attitude, provided that transparency and clear communication are guaranteed.

These findings underline the potential of AI as a supportive tool in university teaching and at the same time emphasize the importance of responsible integration by teachers.

In May, we had the opportunity to present the results of our survey "What do you need to enter the job market?" to colleagues, teachers and representatives of university didactics at the Center for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching at TU Dresden and to discuss them together.

Key findings

It was found that the majority of students would like to be better prepared for starting their careers than they are in their current degree program. There are no differences in terms of gender, semester or type of degree program.

Many students are concerned about the fear of discrimination: 252 students (31.6%) fear that their gender will affect their chances of starting a career. Age, ethnic origin, appearance and social background are then cited as the most common disadvantage factors. The correlation between gender and the number of perceived disadvantage factors is particularly striking: Women are significantly more worried - only 27.1% assume a career start free of discrimination, while almost half of other genders share this hope.

Finally, the results in the area of digital skills show that certain skills are seen as particularly essential for starting a career, while students believe that there is room for improvement in the promotion of these skills at university. Skills in using digital technologies to solve problems and in digital collaboration should be more strongly integrated into degree programs in order to be better prepared for the demands of the job market.

The presentation was followed by a lively discussion in the plenary session. Exciting questions arose such as: To what extent is a university degree course at all committed to preparing students for the job market compared to a degree course at a university of applied sciences or a dual study program? And can students assess during their studies which skills they will need later on?

Conclusions & outlook

The differences in the perception of disadvantage factors between the genders in particular show that women face specific hurdles when entering the world of work. This reinforces the need to develop support measures in a targeted manner for women in order to promote equal opportunities and optimally prepare them for their entry into the professional world. The findings will be directly incorporated into the further development of our course offerings so that we can respond to the identified needs in an even more targeted manner in future.

Another key conclusion from the survey is the need to make degree programs more practical and relevant to the profession and to promote digital skills. Universities are faced with the task of linking academic content more closely with the real requirements of the digital job market. This requires curricula to be adapted in a targeted manner and practice-oriented elements to be integrated to a greater extent. We are therefore also making the survey results available to TU Dresden's degree program development department in order to promote an even stronger focus on the requirements of students and the professional world.

We will shortly be publishing further insights into the survey and its results in our paper "Between expectation and study reality: Results of a survey on digital skills at TU Dresden" in the ZiLL anthology.

Our next "License for Digital Competence" course has officially started.

© Malte Janzen

At the kick-off in presence, the most important foundations were laid for purely virtual collaboration in the coming weeks. The focus was on an introduction to the tools and the presentation of the case study. Personas are being used for the first time: as part of the kick-off event, students were able to choose a persona that best reflects their professional or personal interests in a targeted manner. All participants who chose the same persona then formed a team. This resulted in five teams that will work on our new case study together over the next few weeks, exclusively virtually. The focus of the content is on challenges in the context of starting a career in order to provide the participants with essential skills for a successful transition into the world of work.

Now the actual work phase begins - we are looking forward to the creative results of the student teams!

Last week we awarded 35 students with their "License for Digital Competence". In the weeks prior, the participants demonstrated their ability to analyze and solve practice-relevant problems in interdisciplinary teams.

They mastered the challenges of communication and collaboration in virtual environments, organized their teamwork effectively and test various digital tools. So they have laid an important foundation for their future digital studies and work life.

We congratulate all graduates on their achievement!

We recently took part in an exciting workshop on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). We would like to use the insights gained from the workshop to further develop our "License for Digital Competences" course in order to not only teach our participants digital skills, but also to make a contribution to a more sustainable future.

© Josefine Marquardt

A first point of contact is with Goal 4 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. In our course, we place great emphasis on promoting digital skills, which are essential in today's world of work. We want to ensure that all participants have the opportunity to navigate the digital world and continuously develop their skills. We lay the foundations to ensure that students are motivated and inspired to participate in the knowledge community beyond the course and develop an awareness of lifelong learning.

We also see a link to Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. We use gender-sensitive language in our course and present women in strong leadership roles within our case study. Our course prepares women in a targeted manner for the (digital) demands of the job market. In the future, we plan to develop further case studies in the STEM field so that women can test themselves in these areas before starting their careers. Introducing women to technical and digital topics at an early stage can boost their self-confidence and increase their career opportunities in the long term.

There is another important link to Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. Our course provides targeted support for students who are about to start their careers. By teaching digital skills, we build a foundation that increases their access to and opportunities in the job market. By preparing participants for the demands of an increasingly digital world of work, we help ensure that they are not only better qualified, but also able to contribute to productive and sustainable work structures. Our approach aims to promote fair working conditions and support long-term economic growth through well-trained young talent.

Finally, our course also addresses Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. Our current case study on the development and integration of autonomous buses raises participants' awareness of the challenges and opportunities of improving connectivity between rural areas and urban centers. Through these topics, we aim to raise awareness of sustainable mobility and promote innovative solutions.

We look forward to integrating these aspects into our course and working together with our participants towards a more sustainable future.

Using the example of autonomous driving to strengthen digital skills and interdisciplinary collaboration

In the winter semester 24/25, the case study "ConnectDresden" is the starting point of our course. Participants take on the role of recent TU Dresden graduates and form a new team that is involved in the planning of an autonomous bus network in Dresden as part of a joint project.

© Malte Janzen

The case study accompanies the participants over several weeks. In various tasks, they are confronted with complex and unstructured challenges they have to solve digitally. The tasks include researching and creating digital content, solving technical problems, maintaining a presence in digital media and dealing with false reports. During the course, participants acquire digital skills through practical experience, which are essential in today's job market.

The highlight: the complex tasks can only be solved in a team. The topic of autonomous driving offers the opportunity to bring together different specialist disciplines and train interdisciplinary cooperation. Thanks to the expertise from different subject areas such as IT, engineering and social sciences, students can examine the topic comprehensively from a technical, social and ethical perspective and develop creative, innovative solutions.

Participants also learn to reflect on themselves, to recognize their own role in the team and to understand its influence on the success of the group. In the course of the case study, the students take on increasing responsibility as we as mentors gradually withdraw from the process(fading).

The experiences from the course prepare participants for interdisciplinary projects in an increasingly networked and digital working environment.

In fall 2024, we will conduct a survey among TU Dresden students as part of our project to determine their needs with regard to starting a career. The aim is to ensure that our offers address the actual needs of students.

Various subject areas are examined, such as

• Preparation for career entry through the degree course.
• Possible disadvantages when entering professional life.
• The relevance and promotion of digital skills and other aspects such as project management, networking and self-reflection during studies.

The results of the survey will be used to further develop our courses so that they prepare students for the demands of the increasingly digital job market. In the long term, the results will also be incorporated into the development of degree programs and contribute to their further development.

Overall, the survey is an important milestone in achieving our central project goal: to provide students with support for their entry into professional life while meeting the demands of the modern job market.

The three-day workshop "Digital Empowerment for Women in Science" is behind us. Together with 17 participants, we explored various digital tools and strategies that can support not only day-to-day work, but also the implementation of long-term goals. The initial feedback from the participants speaks for itself:

• "Nice exchange and great boost" - The workshop offered valuable impulses that had a motivating effect and led to new ideas.
• "Cool new tools" - Many participants appreciated the variety of new, useful tools that they can now integrate into their daily work.
• "Nice atmosphere" - The relaxed and open atmosphere created space for lively discussions and creative exchange.
• "It was good to see the perspective of others" - The exchange with the other participants opened up new insights and broadened one's own perspective.

© Anne Jantos

The workshop showed how digital tools can be used effectively to organize tasks, communicate and strengthen one's own network. Above all, however, everyone learned to appreciate the value of exchange and collaboration.

Our student employees Riyam and Malte joined the team in June. Malte will support us with data collection and project management, and Riyam will play a key role in organizing the mentoring workshop in September.

© Sven Ellger/Malte Janzen

We are looking forward to working together!

We are pleased to announce an exciting development in our efforts to promote and support young female academics.

As part of the mentoring program of TU Dresden's Service Center Studies, we held a kick-off event where we had the opportunity to give a presentation and gather important topics and needs of our target group. This exchange gave us valuable insights into how we can tailor our program to effectively address the needs of young female scientists.

© KickOff Mentoring

A highlight of our cooperation will be the implementation of a 3-day workshop on "Digital Empowerment", which is planned for September 2024. This workshop aims to equip participants with the necessary digital skills and tools to succeed in today's fast-paced scientific landscape. From developing technical skills to strengthening digital communication, workshop participants will learn how to effectively utilize digital resources to achieve their research goals and advance their careers.

What does it mean to work together on complex problems when team members come from different departments, are geographically distributed and digital tools structure the work process? Virtual Collaborative Learning (VCL) deals with this initial situation.

VCL is a didactic teaching/learning format that combines problem-based learning with collaborative group work in virtual environments1 Students work on authentic case studies that depict real professional challenges with the aim of stimulating action-oriented learning processes1 There is no "right solution" for these case studies, but rather several possible paths that must be negotiated, justified and further developed together. In this way, VCL promotes precisely those skills that are crucial in the digital age: Problem-solving skills, communication, self-organization and reflective collaboration1 Students work in groups that are as heterogeneous as possible and organize their collaboration largely independently2 The virtual environment is an integral part of the learning setting.

Four design dimensions for effective virtual collaborative learning

To ensure that VCL is more than just "group work in an online space", the format is based on four closely interlinked design dimensions:

• Realistic case studies that depict complex, professionally relevant problems
• A suitable technical platform that enables collaboration, communication and documentation (e.g. MS Teams)
• Professional pedagogical support that accompanies, structures and reflects on the learning process (by qualified e-tutors and/or other teachers)
• Learning analytics to make learning processes visible and enable feedback in a targeted manner 13

Only the interaction of these elements makes VCL an effective and sustainable learning format.

This is how a VCL project works

© Altmann et al. 2024

A typical VCL project lasts three to eight weeks and combines synchronous and asynchronous learning phases. It starts with a synchronous kick-off event in which the objectives, process and expectations are clarified and the working groups are formed. The group work then begins. The students work on so-called "tasks" at regular intervals, each of which addresses different aspects of the case study and sets new challenges in a targeted manner. After each completed task, the groups receive differentiated, group-specific feedback that addresses both content-related and process-related aspects. The VCL concludes with a final presentation in which the solutions developed are reflected on and discussed. 1

You can find out more about the VCL concept here

Why Virtual Collaborative Learning forms the didactic backbone of LiDiCo

LiDiCo is designed as a cross-faculty, virtual learning program in which students from different departments work in small interdisciplinary groups on a practice-oriented case study. The Virtual Collaborative Learning approach fits in conceptually with this, as it enables collaboration across disciplinary, institutional and cultural boundaries and thus creates key prerequisites for such a format. Virtual group work allows low-threshold access for students from all departments and supports the involvement of international participants in a targeted manner through English-language elements. At the same time, diversity can be consciously taken into account in the group composition in order to strengthen visibility and equal opportunities, especially for women, in the digital work context.

At the same time, VCL allows digital skills to be promoted in a targeted manner without decoupling them from the learning context. Digital tools are used functionally as part of the case study work, communication and collaboration processes are reflected upon and self-organization and the assumption of responsibility are actively practised. Along the DigComp 2.2 4, students not only acquire technical know-how, but also develop a reflective understanding of digital work processes.

After completing LiDiCo, students can structure digital work processes in a self-organized manner, develop viable solutions for real problems in heterogeneous teams and further develop their own actions in the digital space in a reflective manner.

We are pursuing a holistic approach with our project: in addition to building digital skills, we place importance on developing other future skills that contribute to academic success and ultimately facilitate the transition to the world of work.

Understanding dropouts
Academic success is often defined as the opposite of dropping out. This is why we first took a close look at the reasons why students drop out. Research shows that dropouts are often due to a combination of different 1:

• Unfavorable entry requirements: A low level of information and the associated false expectations of studying or a strongly extrinsically motivated approach to studying (e.g. altruistic motives such as high earnings)
• Study conditions: Problems with the organization of studies and examinations or high demands can overwhelm students
• Lack of practical relevance
• Learning and performance difficulties
• Stressful life circumstances: personal and family problems
• Subject-specific challenges: The number of students dropping out is comparatively high in scientific and technical subjects
• Exam failures and missed deadlines: finally failed exams or exceeding the standard period of study

Gender-specific differences
The data shows that men tend to drop out of university more often than women. At universities, the dropout rate for men in the 2016 graduating class was 8 percentage points higher than that of women23
In the past, however, there have been hardly any gender-specific differences in the reasons for dropping out across many 4. Women are only disproportionately represented in drop-outs for family reasons, which are around 5.

Our solutions
Based on these findings, we focus on aspects that we can address in our courses. These include:

• Integration of strategies and tools to optimize self-organization in order to counteract problems with study or examination organization
• designing the case study to be as practical as possible in order to strengthen its practical relevance
• Measures to strengthen the self-confidence of students, especially women
• Making support services (e.g. student advisory services) and networks visible in order to provide access to effective solutions and the opportunity to network with people in similar situations

A large proportion of students drop out during the orientation or first-year6. In the long term, we are therefore planning to cooperate with TU Dresden's orientation year to make our courses accessible to prospective students and show how digital skills, strategies and tools can support an informed study decision.

Through our efforts, we hope to help students successfully complete their studies and make a good start to their careers.

The Studium Generale at TU Dresden offers students a broad, interdisciplinary education with content from outside their degree program. It comprises over 120 courses per semester, which are offered by faculties, (student) initiatives and civil society organizations.

In order to be able to offer our AQUA and Studium Generale courses, we first analyzed the organizational requirements and derived the following framework conditions for us:

Course structure: Our course extends over 12 weeks and will largely take place online, so no physical rooms are required. No block courses or weekend courses are planned. The course starts with enrollment via OPAL and can optionally be continued on other platforms such as MS Teams.

Grading: Upon successful completion, students receive a certificate and 5 ECTS credits. Credit is awarded depending on the faculty, e.g. via a certificate of achievement. In certain degree programs, students must register for credits in the examination system.

The detailed report can be found here. The results should help other lecturers to implement similar courses.

We celebrate our project launch and present the vision of LiDiCo on our first poster:

© Maike Krohn