EDUCATION SYSTEM IN GERMANY AND TUTORIAL SYSTEM AT THE UNIVERSITIES OF AACHEN

By

Christina Rose
University of Technology
Aachen, Germany

INTRODUCTION

• Education system in Germany
• Aims of 2^nd+ semester students working with 1^st semester students (University of Applied Sciences and University of Technology, Aachen)
• System of tutors training tutors in Aachen
• Work to be done over the year

HDZ/IMA

• The departments activities
• Projects

EU-INDIA CROSS CULTURAL INNOVATION NETWORK HDZ/IMA

• Initiation of contact between doctorate students from Aachen and EU-India project
• List of web sites from Germany and Aachen of interest for EU-India project.

EU-INDIA CROSS CULTURAL INNOVATION NETWORK WEB SITES

• Design, concept, contents

INTRODUCTION

This is the report of a voluntary placement from the 4^th to the 15^th of August, written by Christina Rose. The work that was done during this period at Brighton University is meant to contribute to the cooperation of HDZ/IMA at the University of Technology in Aachen with their partners in EU-India cross cultural innovation network.

The first step to achieve this was to visualize the education system in Germany in general and Aachen in particular, which. was divided into two sections: a) developing a diagram that would provide an outline of the education system in Germany, starting with the primary school and giving an outlook of possibilities of academic career as well. b) offering short, but detailed information on a partcipatory scheme of first year students` introduction to Aachen universities. This practise is run by the Aachen second and third year students. This is unique to the University of Applied Sciences and the University of Technology in Aachen, and is supported by the HDZ/IMA Aachen.

The second step was to give a more general outline of the activities of HDZ/ IMA department including both, the background and the current student/ research projects of interest to the EU-India cross cultural network.

In order to create better communication between these projects and the network, first steps of communication and interrelationship have been initiated, relying on both, the Aachen project’s and the department’s web sites, and a personal contact via e-mail and discussion forum.

Since this discussion forum is meant to be the center of the EU-India cross cultural innovation network, the last step was to discuss the overall conception, intention and contents of the network's web sites in order to find a way of equally linking network partners and making the web sites attractive to the visitors.

All research done during this visit to Brighton was based on online research and brainstorming discussions.

People taking part in these investigations were Prof. Karamjit S Gill, Network Coordinator/ Project Director, University of Brighton; Tania Funston, Network Coordination Centre, University of Brighton; Vydhehi Rajapillai, School of Information Management, Faculty of IT, University of Brighton; Dr. Dietrich Brand, International Networks, University of Technology, Aachen; and Christina Rose, student of Philosophy, University of Technology Aachen.

1. EDUCATION SYSTEM IN GERMANY/ TUTORIAL SYSTEM AT THE UNIVERSITIES OF AACHEN

Education system in Germany

 



 

 

 

2. Aims of 2^nd+ semester students working with 1^st semester students
   (University of Applied Sciences + University of Technology, Aachen)

At the University of Aachen (Germany) there are about 5000 new students every year, and approximately another 1000 at the University of Applied Sciences. In order to help this comparatively huge number of newcomers to have a good start, a continuously working program run only by 2^nd+ semester students was initiated. The aims behind this are the following:

1) working with 1^st semester students as a catalyst for reforming the structure of the university:

• motivating students to work together on a single collaborative project and achieve a participartory outcome working all together, instead of competing with the other students all the time
• creating a new access to learning resources and learning structures by communicating personal experiences to other students and discussing these experiences
• informing students about the democratic system of the university in order to encourage them to take part in discussions with other groups such as teachers and professors

2) general political aims:

• Solidarity between the students of all semesters and subjects
• Improving the democratic structures and the possibilities for students to take part in discussions on social progresses

3) political aims within university:

• taking university not only as a pure working place, but also as a place for creating a social context within wich the social aspect of communication and humanity are fostered
• getting students from all subjects to work together in inderdisciplinary forums in order to exchange their experiences and learn from each other

4) social aims:

• helping the 1^st semester students to get along with the fact that they are away from their hometown and standing on their own for the first time
• creating first social contacts for the 1^st semester students
• creating an environment for fun instead of a pure working atmosphere

3. The system of student tutors training new student tutors in Aachen

4. Work to be done by 2^nd+ semester students over the year

¨

1. HDZ/ IMA

1. The department’s activities

The idea of Informatics in Mechanical Engineering (IMA) IMA aims to mediate basic informatics in mechanical engineering which are practically orientated, and to find ways of developing user-friendly computer systems in mechanical engineering. The emphasis is put on the human<->machine interaction. One special aspect of this is the use of methods from cybernetic system theory.

The idea of Research and Development in Higher Education (HDZ) HDZ aims to develop strategies for improving the process of learning and higher qualification for universities, industries and public institutions, and to put them into practice. The emphasis is put on the development of staff, organization, and technology at the same time. Thus, specific methods of partipicipatory learning structures and systematic instruments of thinking are mainly used. The training scheme of the new student tutors belongs to this activity of the department.

2. Projects

The HDZ/IMA is involved in numerous, often interdisciplinary research projects. Doctoral students can choose among various research areas connected with local or international industry, and are encouraged to get their own business/ enterpise running afterwards.

Some examples of existing projects are:

doing-in-Aachen: improve studying situation for female students in mechanical engineering and electronic technology in Aachen; increase number of female students

CNC+ Telelearning: learning and working at several locations using ISDN based systems of communication (video conferences; application sharing;…)

COCARE: optimize recycling of carpets

QuiG: environmentally oriented working in handicraft: qualify in and innovative organization

EnBau: resource-friendly, energy saving building of houses

LASIM: development of a simulator with laser technique for working with different materials as a learning and training aid, both within and outside University

SAIL: Semitrailer in Advanced Intermodal Logistics

PEM: development of competence and learning processes in the service sector

3D sewing: integrated 3D sewing system

UMS: environmental management at the University

SENEKA: service networks for second education and higher education

1. EU-INDIA CROSS CULTURAL INNOVATION NETWORK — HDZ/ IMA

1. Initiation of contacts between doctorate students from Aachen and the EU-India network project

As illustrated in the last section, the projects from Aachen correspond to the activities aimed at by EU-India cross cultural innovation project. They cover the fields of enterpreneurial innovation, socio-economic innovation, multimedia and value added innovation and knowledge and innovation. They are not only based on regional needs, but also have international aspects. Still, most of the web sites of these projects are written in German or reveal little information on ideas and cultural background behind them. It appears therefore to be difficult to enable international partners make use of the information or get interested in further research collaboration or contacts with Aachen.

Thus, the idea came up to organize workshop seminars of three or four days during which network partners could get information directly from the Aachen members. The seminars should also provide an opportunity to discuss ideas regarding their own backgrounds and innovation techniques. These meetings are planned to take place in March 2001 in India.

But, since the web sites and the discussion forum would be working for quite a long time by that date, it seems to be useful to undertake smaller steps even before March. The basic idea is to create contacts between Aachen doctorate students and the EU-India cross cultural innovation network. In order to achieve this, an e-mail was sent to all doctorate students at HDZ/IMA encouraging them to take part in the discussion forum on the EU-India web sites, (which are by this time still under construction). They were also asked to write a short description of their projects in English and the interrelationship between the University, industry and other students. In case they already had something about the project on the web, they might also be interested in being linked to EU-India web sites, so they were asked to produce an English version as an addition to the German one. The first reactions to this are expected to arrive in Brighton by the beginning of the new semester in Aachen atthe beginning of September 2000.

Those students or teachers from HDZ/IMA who are interested in having permanent contact with EU-India cross cultural innovation network have the opportunity of joining the main mailing list of the project. In order to prevail information that might be of special interest to Aachen members, the support team at HDZ/IMA is about to be asked for creating a department’s mailing list in addition to the main one from EU-India project.

1. Selection of German/ Aachen web sites of interst for EU-India cross cultural innovation network

Note: most web sites written in German as well as in some other languages can easily be translated into English by using an online translation program. One example for this can be found here: http://www.altavista.com (English). If you run down that site, there is a link saying ‘translate for me’. It is possible to translate either special terms or even whole web sites, if one enters a text version or a web address.

About education system in Germany:

http://www.niedersachsen.de/MK6.htm diagram showing education system in Niedersachsen, Germany, from form 1 to 13. (German)

http://www.hochschulkompass.hrk.de/ -> switch to English version; information on higher education system and universities

About 1^st semester student work:

http://www.esp.fh-aachen.de students’ web sites about 2^nd+ semester students working with 1^st semester students (University of Applied Sciences Aachen) (German)

http://www.rwth-aachen.de/esp/ students’ web sites about 2^nd+ semester students working with 1^st semester students (University of Technology Aachen) (German)

About ‘teaching the teachers’:

http://www.esp.fh-aachen.de/tg students’ web sites about ^3rd+ semester students training 2^nd+ semester students as tutors (German)

About social working with groups:

‘AASWG’ (Association of Advanced Social Working with Groups) into searching machine (international)

http://www.naswdc.org/links.htm list of international links for social groupworkers (English)

‘IBS’ into German searching machine (e.g. http://www.lycos.de ), German section

About HDZ/IMA

http://hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de this site contains a link to some information on the department’s activities in English, starting page with links leading to all other sites of HDZ/IMA

http://www.hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de/hausseite.html diagram showing the department’s activities (German)

http://www.hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de/forschung/projekte/virtualwalk1024/henning/html this site contains a short video clip of the head of the department and is part of a virtual walk through HDZ/IMA. (German)

http://www.hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de/lehre/sdm_arbeiten/index.html this site contains a list of postgraduate students’ research areas and timetables. Also gives an idea about master- and diploma-works. (German)

http://www.hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de/forschung/projekte/index.html http://www.hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de/forschung/arbeitsbereiche/index.html examples of projects where postgraduate students are involved; human centered systems (German)

http://www.hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de/forschung/projekte/seneka/index.html one of the projects at HDZ/IMA, with an English version of their web sites (click English version at the bottom)

everyone@hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de e-mail address of everyone working at HDZ/IMA, including students

support@hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de e-mail address of network administrators at HDZ/IMA

1. EU-INDIA CROSS CULTURAL INNOVATION NETWORK WEB SITES

1. Brainstorming about design, concept, contents, …

Aim: every interested person should find information that answers his or her questions.

Problem: visitors from different ‘levels’, e.g.

• students who want a short explanation in order to find out what EU-India cross cultural innovation network is for;
• people from the industry who might know little about universities;
• partners of the network who want to join in the up to date discussions and fields of research;
• etc.

Solution: different headlines on starting page, among which visitors can choose, e.g.:

These ideas can be put into practice by using the already existing starting page and provide links from the different topics (e.g. ‘project’ -> who are we? Etc.)

The language which is used to reveal rather general information for first time visitors should not be too scientific, but rather simple, because most visitors may not be native speakers.

More ideas:

It should be possible for every visitor to load down the web sites easily

• design according to this
• small note on starting page, saying e.g. ‘min. 800x600 & Browser >4.x’

http://www.esp.fh-aachen.de

• brief explanation why it is done like this (in order to prevent discussion about web site design etc.)
• larger graphics, photos, video clips etc. apart from text versions (voluntarily)
• common + easy to handle software should be used in order to enable everyone to put information on the web sites
• design according to good printout results (people might want information on paper base => not only web sites, but also printed publications could be made and distributed in universities => would need at least 1 person responsible for both per university)

Structure of web sites should accord to the way people are used to using the web. This might be difficult, since Indian and European visitors might have different ways to do virtual research.

Some ideas about a clear structure are:

• only a few headlines on starting page, leading to further information by clicking on them http://www.esp.fh-aachen.de
• if possible short text units, rather than long ones containing too many links (all on one site, no running down) http://www.esp.fh-aachen.de/esp
• Clear structure of links, links apart from the texts (side bar?) If there are too many topics: articles referring to the same subject could be put under one single headline and appear only when this headline is chosen as a link http://www.esp.fh-aachen.de/esp -> click on ‘Das Konzept an der FH Aachen’ -> sub-headlines appear
• When visitors click on partner universities, it should be obligatory for this university to have a link back to EU-India cross cultural innovation network (easy way back)
• Partners should be encouraged to put up English versions of their web sites so that international use is made easier
• In order to make people acquainted with the partner Universities, short video sections of persons working on EU-India network might be prepared (ca. 15 seconds)http://www.hdz-ima.rwth- aachen.de/forschung/projekte/virtualwalk1024/henning.html
• Written introductions of universities and partners might contain photos (personal atmosphere) and ‘mailto’-buttons (easy way of contacting a person). The partners should be asked for agreement on this first.
• In order to get a feeling on how many visitors are on EU-India network web sites a statistic can be made (available for visitors as well as administrators) http://www.esp.fh-aachen.de

1. Technical Support

The web sites of EU-India cross cultural innovation network are modified and updated regularly. Every member of the discussion forum and every partner should be able to add information to the network whenever necessary. The result will be a Virtual Innovation Network, an Institute without walls for future academic and entrepreneurial collaboration.

Thus, it would be very helpful to have an administrator who updates and develops the web pages regularly as long as possible. Since this person should be skilled in using the necessary software as well as reliable, it seems to be best to arrange a working contract a professional administrator.

Since this turns out to be a financial problem, the alternative found during the discussion on how to get regular technical support was inspired by an idea working in Germany already:

In order to find interested students either advertisements offering a certificate for web site administration if successful could be put up on university’s blackboards, or teachers could be asked to find somebody.