"For every type of information I believe that videos are the way we communicate right now” Shama, former student at the University of Göttingen.

Take time to register, meet other participants and chat over coffee.

Anja Schaluschke
Museum of Communication Berlin ​

Dr Jens Brandenburg, MdB
German Federal Ministry for Education and Research

Dr Muriel Helbig
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

Moving beyond ‘digital divide’ narratives, this presentation interrogates how the digitalisation of education can embed or promote material injustices, cultural-epistemic injustices and (geo)political injustices. After expanding on calls for ‘decolonising EdTech’, 3 key arguments framing justice-oriented Digital Education are highlighted along with 4 guidelines on how we can strive to design and implement more justice-oriented digital education.

What is the task of internationalisation? At this panel discussion, practitioners and a student will illustrate why internationalisation in itself is not necessarily an aim. They will discuss how we might think beyond internationalisation in order to address our shared global challenges in equitable, sustainable, and ethical ways. Of course, the role of digitalisation will be addressed as well.

We look forward to fruitful discussions during our opening reception. In addition, guided tours of the Museum of Communication Berlin will be offered and the "treasure chamber will be open for individual viewings.

Hommage is an interactive installation in which users can explore artworks in a 3D space by the usage of VR technologies

** Dr Michael Harms**
German Academic Exchange Service

It is often assumed that intercultural learning will be an automatic outcome of engaging learners in virtual exchange, yet this is not always the case. The pedagogic design of the exchange and the partnership are some factors that can influence the learning outcomes. In this presentation findings regarding intercultural learning from several large-scale virtual exchange initiatives will be presented and discussed, as well as the implications.

In this keynote, Prof. Timm Teubner talks about how, when, and why (and why not) people trust online. The talk sheds light on research on trust and reputation and explores the mechanisms and designs that govern our perceptions and behaviors — as well as the side effects that come with it.

The annual blended learning seminar International Research Project, gives students from currently five countries the opportunity to gain experience in virtual collaboration. The learning journals kept during the course reflect the opportunities and challenges of such a format as perceived by the students. The presentation offers solutions in the form of recommendations for action and shows why collaboration is worthwhile.

The presentation will share learning from a SAQA/WES pilot initiative that aims to facilitate access of refugees and asylum seekers to furthering their academic and career goals who, because of adverse circumstances in their country of education, lack standard proof of academic achievement.

Climate change, the pandemic, providing quality education for everyone – classical student mobility is facing (and partially aggravating) many global challenges. Digitalization has enabled universities to open new paths for internationalization. In the presentation, we will reflect on the learnings of funded projects from our three digitalization programs IMKD, IP Digital, and IVAC to determine the future demands for digital internationalization.

The presentation describes the development and establishment of a partly digital micro-credential in Sustainable Entrepreneurship within the European University Network “ENHANCE–European University of Technology Alliance”. The presentation will focus on the benefits of this new type of micro-degree and the challenges of developing common standards in an international network of academic actors with different regulations, approaches, and culture.

Under the lead of the Protestant University of Applied Sciences Dresden (Germany) the trinational project "(In)Visible Women in Social Sciences and Social Work" (www.womeninsocialsciences.eu) was carried out. The presentation will focus on a) the academic and creative collaboration of the student’s groups, b) evaluation results on challenges and successes in intercultural collaboration, c) development of the comics.

Credential evaluators both send and receive student data. We have to be able to accommodate paper and digital documents in various formats. We play a key role in learner mobility and provide a way for educational achievements to be recognized across borders. The presenter will discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by the work of credential evaluators and our impact on learner mobility.

This session discusses three major topics of the collaborative project Communication and Society@Ibero-America: a) The relevance of infrastructure and instructional design to strengthen international partnerships with co-teaching formats; b) Interculturality as a teaching subject and intrinsic feature of the project; c) Assessment practices that make international virtual projects sustainable.

Virtual exchange and blended mobility allow international educational formats which have been impossible or inefficient with only physical mobility, e.g. concepts with several short interactions or with high numbers of students. Within the DAAD programme “international mobility and cooperation – digital (IMKD)” universities implemented and evaluated such new virtual or blended formats. The panel will discuss examples and best practices.

The Database of External Quality Assurance Results (DEQAR) provides a one stop shop access to
reliable information about the quality assurance of higher education institutions in Europe (and beyond). This public database contains 80 000 reports (i.e. accreditations and evaluations) on higher education institutions and their programmes. The session will offer a glimpse of the eco system of the database and the possibilities for using the data.

What does the European Learning Model V.3 have in store for us?

The INVITE project MyEduLife aims to create a unified system for institutions in the field of continuing education to issue digital learning credentials. They will be cryptographically secured and linked to a blockchain so that recipients can prove issued credentials to verifiers. Credentials will be issued as w3c-vcs, in accordance with did principles; skills and competencies will be aligned with esco.

Digitalization opens a wide range of collaboration opportunities, especially using virtual exchange. In our presentation, we report on two collaboration projects (IVAC: Australia, Germany) and show students’ conceptualizations of cultural differences, learning, and their collaboration. We deliver impulses for educational implications and optimization in higher education.

The workshop focuses on the importance of considering Diverse Learning Needs in Virtual Exchange learning scenarios to ensure equal participation and inclusion of all participants and intends to contribute to the solutions of reducing learning barriers by using the Design Thinking process with the final output in the form of first prototypes.

Hochschule Bonn-Rhein Sieg (H-BRS) has redesigned its strategic internationalization strategy by expanding its traditional mobility programs and incorporating virtual and hybrid mobility schemes since 2018. Its mission is to provide virtual mobility for all. All students should have an international virtual experience while studying at H-BRS. It has initiated a campus-wide DIF project to coordinate all activities in each department.

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted internationalisation activities of universities around the globe. At the same time, it has served as an accelerator of innovation, particularly regarding moving teaching, learning, research and community engagement activities online.

In the DAAD’s IP Digital program VEDIAS-VR we implemented a Social Virtual Reality platform in online master study programs to offer an immersive platform to support international students in collaboration. We report on our experiences about the platform’s potential and challenges for international students, and on educator’s feedback on motivation and engagement, and the course design.

How can globally interoperable digital credentials in education be achieved and which policy actions are necessary to achieve international standards and recognition?

MIT and the Digital Credentials Consortium developed the open source Learner Credential Wallet (LCW, https://lcw.app/) to allow learners to store, manage, and share their academic credentials, and deployed it with a number of universities. LCW supports key international standards from the World Wide Web Consortium including the Verifiable Credentials Data Model & Decentralized Identifiers v1.0.

Virtual mobility has represented the only solution available for offering an experience abroad during the pandemic using online tools. In order to manage the unexpected scenario, HEIs have developed tools for teaching and interacting online and the faculty members were trained for using them. The paper wants to highlight the opportunities for developing virtual mobility programs starting from the experience of the Covid-19.

As part of the DAAD project MyScore, software for avatar-based teaching and learning was created, tested and put into regular operation at RWTH Aachen University. The presentation will describe the possibilities of the open source solution as well as the experiences with the possibilities of virtual mobility in a binational study program.
*For more information see the [website] (https://vredu.lfi.rwth-aachen.de/en/).

Europe-Wide Higher Education Collaboration on Edtech

The session will review the research project "Digital Credentials for Higher Education Institutions" (DiBiHo) and present its findings and proof of concept.

Virtual Exchange is a great opportunity for students to make contacts all over the world. For this to happen, however, the first step is to break the ice in the international student group. In this interactive workshop, you will explore icebreaking activities for Virtual Exchange. At the end, you will have the opportunity to share your own favorite icebreaking activities.

This presentation outlines the findings of Phase A of a PhD research project which qualitatively explores student/educator perspectives from recent COIL/VE projects. Although COIL/VE should be carefully designed, delivered and reflected upon, a poor exchange need not be a wasted opportunity. We’ll explore perspectives of the experience for students/educators and what this might mean for future practice and evaluation.

RWTH Aachen University's goal is to make the university visible abroad and to recruit excellent students, for which simple and at the same time emphatic information about the unique opportunities for teaching and research at the university is essential.
In cooperation and close coordination with GATE-Germany, a VR representation was created for this purpose with which you can explore RWTH Aachen University with your own avatar.

Digitalization has profoundly changed international cooperation between universities. In one way or another, the challenges posed by disruptive events such as the Covid 19 pandemic can be absorbed, and new pathways paved through digital tools. But what happens to international collaboration in higher education when multiple crises emerge? How can student mobility and collaborative learning adapt/continue in times of civil wars?

Within the German-speaking countries, the University for Continuing Education Krems is the only public university for continuing education. Its new two key strategies to the topics of digitalisation and internationalisation overlap and define common goals and formats, meant to ensure innovative, up-to-date, and inclusive high quality academic continuing education and lifelong learning for and in the global higher education area.

How might we collectively build the credentialing ecosystem across education and work, internet eras and... human technology failures ?

Digital microcredentials are key for the future of education. Governments and the private sector are offering multiple frameworks and solutions. At UC3M we are involved in multiple initiatives. However, if a university wants to offer them today it is not easy to bet for the right decision for the future. We offer a practical use case of a program of digital skills that is taken as a basis for piloting and reflection.

SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences and University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt will provide an insight into how their collaboration at a national level has influenced the conception and development of their virtual international collaboration projects (IVAC). You will learn about positive outcomes and challenges, and will engage in a speed dating activity with the aim of setting the grounds for your own peer-to-peer network.

We will discuss the findings of our institutional evaluation of our Virtual Exchange + Program, how to ensure a successful and continued collaboration with our partners and what will be the necessary steps to implement the program at an institutional level. We hope to get into a lively discussion with the audience and create new ideas together.

Students learning in an international digital space can experience tension and even panic. Leaning on the conceptual framework of Barlow’s (2007) Third Space which is characterized as a precondition for the articulation of cultural differences, a space of strangeness. With an adaptation of the Third Space to International digital learning, students were able to reflect on their feelings, thoughts and re- examine beliefs and original perceptions .

The higher education landscape in Europe changes through the thriving European University Alliances (UAs). They enable students to obtain degrees by combining studies among several HEIs. UAs should offer seamless cross-border collaboration and inspire new forms of mobility and exchange. They form decentralized environments where the concept of Digital Academic Credentials adapted to their specific needs and data interoperability are paramount.

In this talk I will discuss the benefits of VE and the skills that might be developed by these exchanges as well as provide examples of these exchanges.

In order to provide a detailed feedback to students, usually a lot of time has to be invested. "Deploy to Grading" is a concept that allows analyzing students' solutions and creating detailed feedback for exercises in the field of programming in an automated way. The feedback can be requested independently by the students at any time and is available after a few minutes.

The university-wide platform is designed to digitally support students' practical experiences along the student life cycle. The aim is to develop suitable career perspectives. Information on internships is displayed transparently and the assessment of one's own abilities and attitudes is promoted by documenting and reflecting on one's own experiences. The low-threshold exchange with peers, alumni and potential employers is facilitated.

The InPlatBio platform with the participation of an interdisciplinary team: physicians, public health experts, psychologists, philosophers and various lecturers from Europe and Ukraine. The goal here is not only academic and practical exchange, but also moral support for participants who have to work under extremely difficult (war) conditions.

Virtual exchanges are not only beneficial for students but can also enhance educators’ digital competences. The European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (2017) has been applied to a virtual exchange project on sustainability to show how higher education (HE) teachers from two different continents have been able to improve their digital competence level while contributing to the internationalization of their HE institutions.

An overview of the state-of-the-art of anonymous credentials: What privacy and security guarantees can they provide, and what algorithms and software are available to make them useful in practice?

VE is not inherently equitable and inclusive. I will introduce a framework for Critical Virtual Exchange (CVE) (Hauck, 2020; Klimanova & Hellmich, 2021) and present and discuss examples from global exchange initiatives to illustrate the approach and its potential impact and socio-political relevance.

Managing digital transformation is a key competence for companies in developing and industrialised countries, but the corresponding approaches differ in many aspects. As part of an IVAC-funded project, a multi-component didactic concept for virtual interactive learning with a specially developed Systems Thinking Simulation was created. Pilot lectures with mixed MBA groups from Esslingen UAS and the Univ. of Colombo were conducted and evaluated.

Dorit Bosch, the host of the podcast on administration digitalisation "Let's State", examines infrastructure requirements for digital education from her panelists' varying perspectives and touches upon topics that connect them all.

Being able to study at several institutions across several borders in a single semester lets students profit from Virtual Exchange to the fullest extent possible. The high level of internationality and intercultural communication this scenario provides however also poses greater challenges to all those involved. This workshop invites participants to work on translating shared experiences into lessons learned and joint recommendations.

Applying learnt skills as well as motivation and commitment are key to achieving language proficiency. The presentation will examine the Goethe-Institut’s Online Language Learning Courses which focus on collaboration and student engagement by providing a detailed and structured learning environment combined with supportive tutoring.

Over the past four we have developed and coordinated seven DAAD Projects within three distinct funding programs „LEARN[IN]", „ITEMS+“, and "Neckar Now“.Between 2020 and 2022 all the programs were implemented either completely virtual or hybrid. Based on our experience, this presentation focuses on the potential and constraints of digital technologies in an international educational context.

Drawing on examples from the Humanities, this paper highlights how Virtual Exchange and its sub-format COIL serve as flexible, productive, and fertile foundations for exploring the possibilities of internationalisation in the 21st century.

The daadgalerie is offering a private viewing of the exhibition 楔 XIĒ: 連接，嵌入，反射，承托 TO BIND, EMBED, SHIMMER, AND BRACE by the artists' collective 楔 Xiē (Wedge).

After an insightful conference day, we would like to thank our speakers for their time and versatile contributions during the conference with a small thank you dinner. We look forward to a hearty traditional meal (vegetarian options available).
Please note: By invitation only. Transport to the restaurant will be provided.

Digitization has in recent time contributed immensely in learning, education and conservation. This trend has made it easier for teaching and learning to be held online popularly called (virtual participation). It has also contributed in no little measure in aiding lack of in-person studies in schools etc. Digitization means a drift away from analog to digital format, it is a way of ensuring analog to digital converter.

Digital transformation has forever changed education, driving the need to increase digital skills and competences and to unlock the potential of digital educational technologies.

Peter Hassenbach
Head of the Project Group "National Digital Education Area",
German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF)

The presentation brings forth a few activities that can be implemented when designing a learning experience to connect learners to the context of their learning and to their future work, as well as to engage them during the sessions and trigger self-reflection. The activities are relatively easy to implement and can fit many topics.

One of important the dimensions that digitalization has affected is learning and education. In this study, the effect of internet self-efficacy, learner self-regulation, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness on students' willingness to continue online education was investigated. Data analysis showed that the proposed model is very strong (R2=.85) in terms of predicting students' willingness to online learning.

Keynote Speech by James Clay

This keynote speech will explore why we need to think about innovation of education using the DreamApply approach as a case study for opportunities on improvements, challenges from decision makers side and also from educators and innovators side.

The contribution elaborates on the conception and implementation of a virtual community of practice for students and alumni of the MA E-LINGO at the University of Education in Freiburg, Germany. The community was recently established on the learning platform of the course as part of a DAAD-funded project. It aims to respond to needs and leverage potentials of the diverse group of learners in the MA by providing opportunities for peer learning.

Many institutions are still in the beginning of their digital transformation journey and are facing similar challenges. In this workshop, challenges in the area of internationalization of higher education are discussed and possible approaches are identified using the Nowland-Nextland method. Based on the peer-to-peer strategy consulting of the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung, participants engage in an intensive exchange on strategic issues.

The European Digital Education Hub - A short introduction

Esri Germany

In this workshop we will discuss benefits and challenges of global simulations as a method in virtual exchange. We will use the example of the course „The European Union – ideas, challenges and perspectives“ where we teach basics on the European Union to International and German students. The public will be invited to join an interactive discussion on the subject.

BIRD - Bildungsraum Digital: Exploring a digital networking infrastructure for education

Explore a poster gallery that presents the different projects of the Initiative for Digital Education funded by BMBF

The presentation will introduce how knowledge building activities take place in the European Digital Education Hub. Representatives of HEI, VET, Adult learning organizations and Schools are invited to attend, their leaders and decision makers, staff responsible for digitally enhanced learning and teaching, and anyone interested in developing knowledge together on digital education and EDEH CoP.

BooST, Boosting Skills by Digitalization and Training have been launched to develop digital tools, integration of platforms and to support the issues long-life learning, building of capacities and German culture. Tools shall be used to enable engineering education in global context. The platform solution aims to connect students, lecturer and institution. While the networking part focusing the process of long life learning and capacity building.

Despite recent advances, students still face a lengthy task when trying to get external study credits recognised at their home institution. In an effort to fully digitise the recognition process, PIM, the Platform for Inter*national Student Mobility, will offer digital recognition and integration with existing systems to create a better experience for students and staff alike. Here we report on the first productive use and future plans for PIM.

This panel draws on case studies to critically discuss the multiple meanings and models of mobility. We pay special attention to mobility in joint degrees and reflect on barriers and enablers and the current policy work towards a European Degree Label. We suggest a conceptual shift to mobility from a ‘singular’ individual experience to a process by which multiple mobility options are organically integrated in an institution’s pedagogic offering

An example of practical training in the field of microtechnology is presented. Students are first brought in contact with a process by a video tutorial, have then the chance to deepen their knowledge, and finally carry out their own works. The technological process of creating a low-temperature co-fired ceramic circuit board is the topic of the lecture and students learn know different equipment before they start their own hands-on work.

One of the main reasons, why VEs are not yet widely used in education is the lack of the respective knowledge and skills among teachers. KAVA Q is designed as a digital assistance system to qualify teachers for conducting virtual exchanges. In the presentation, we will share the results of our needs analysis and our concept for KAVA Q in order to get helpful feedback for further development.

The Digital Campus - a platform for information, orientation and qualification of prospective international students introduces itself.

A majority of engineering students doesn’t spend time abroad during their study program due to several reasons like necessity to work or care for relatives etc. The FPGA Vision Open Online Course enables students to get international collaboration experience from home without the need to travel. The course is open to all interested students worldwide under OER license to foster international collaboration and is integrated in our curriculum.

This talk provides an introduction to metadata standards in education, gives insights into AI-based
ways to prepare and generate metadata, and introduces the ITs.JOINTLY project.

The HPI D-School pioneered breakthrough innovation in learning and teaching because of its team-based, project-based approach to experiential learning. However, when COVID-19 hit, it was daunting to design a comparable experience in the virtual learning modalities. In this talk, the school will showcase different prototypes, learnings, and iterations, sharing with the audience key takeaways and hypotheses for the future of learning.

This interactive workshop is aiming to bring together higher education internationalization practitioners and digital education specialist from across – possibly beyond – Europe in order to discuss quality and success of digital international collaboration. One outcome of this session may be a digital community of practice to keep the conversation going and progress the issue.

Prof. Dr. Krisztina Karsai and Dr. András Lichtenstein introduce DIGICRIMJUS, an EU supported higher education strategic partnership on Digitalisation and Criminal Law formed by three European universities (University of Szeged - Hungary, University of Konstanz – Germany, University of Istanbul – Turkey) and how they applied virtual exchange and blended mobility to implement their activities during COVID travel restrictions.

Data-driven, human-centric and inclusive services will transform work and education-related value creation scalable. Real-time monitoring of educational maturity along the inspiring priorities in the respective life-phase is made possible with AI. As a patchwork of heterogeneous study experiences from different curricular-scientific inputs, transfer experiences or media-didactic interactions, a unique individual educational path will emerge.

This session offers a short overview and review of the OpenU project (Online Pedagogical Resources for European Universities) and its final policy recommendations on national and European priorities for digital higher education, stemming from evidence-based policy dialogues throughout the OpenU project.

The incommensurability of foreign school leaving certificates poses a major challenge to universities and prospective students alike. A way to ensure a fair assessment of academic qualification gained abroad is an academic aptitude test such as the newly introduced digital format of the TestAS. It is a standardised, fair, highly valid yet flexible and efficient instrument, thus meeting the needs of equally universities and appliccants.

For many international students the digital TestDaF constitutes the starting point on their student journey. The digital format allows for flexible test dates and fast availability of results, thereby facilitating student mobility. With its competency-based approach to language testing the TestDaF does not only certify the language competence required to study at a German university, but also contributes to applicants’ linguistic preparation.

The distribution of Open Educational Resources (OER) is strongly connected to the rise of the world wide web.

Providing continuous teaching in times of war is not only challenging but also very hard to be realized. To support Ukrainian university, a German university provides adapted teaching materials, didactic support as well as mentoring for students and lecturers. This presentation outlines the process of curricula adjustment and realization as well as some of the administrative details for the enrollment for students with a refugee status in Germany

Did you know that there is a global network of universities collaborating to bring together and train students from 5 continents on innovation through design thinking? Did you know that this training happens thanks to the support of all kinds of industries providing real-life challenges and other resources? – How exactly and when SUGAR happens is what you will hear in this talk. See you soon!

The European Digital UniverCity (EDUC) aims to create an integrated European University where learners, educators and researchers collaborate across institutional, cultural, disciplinary and geographical boundaries. Our strategy’s foundation is the Network-learning Communities of Practices which foster meaningful learning environments through peer sharing and self-determined learning activities based on a future-proof EDUCation vision.

Alexander Knoth (German Academic Exchange Service) offers a short review of the past two conference days.

Hybrid Walking Tour "Decolonize Berlin" provided by Esri & Dekoloniale