Digitalisation has brought about far-reaching changes in academic education in recent years. The University of Oldenburg is involved in two major joint projects in Lower Saxony that are driving this development forward.
Lecturers at universities spend many hours planning their courses: they draw up term schedules, design learning modules, devise examination tasks and develop marking schemes. This work can now be completed in a matter of seconds – simply by submitting a query to ChatGPT or another AI-based language model. “These programmes can be a great help in teaching. In my view, the biggest advantage is the time saved,” says Susanne Schorer, who is exploring the potential applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in study and teaching as part of the “Digital Teaching Hub Lower Saxony” (DLHN) project
Digital technologies, particularly AI, are currently developing at a rapid pace – and universities face the challenge of further developing academic education in line with these new possibilities. At the same time, it is necessary to set out guidelines for their use and to establish the appropriate infrastructure. Data protection and copyright must be observed; furthermore, accessibility of materials plays a key role in digital teaching. The universities in Lower Saxony have been joining forces for some time now to tackle the mammoth task of resolving outstanding issues and establishing a suitable infrastructure.
The University of Oldenburg is involved in two major collaborative projects dedicated to the digitalisation of teaching: one is called “SOUVER@N – Digital Teaching and Learning in Lower Saxony”. It was launched in 2021 and is funded by the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education until the end of 2025. Under the leadership of the Universities of Oldenburg, Osnabrück and Lüneburg, eight higher education institutions in Lower Saxony have joined forces to lay the foundations for the increased adoption of digital technologies in the fields of pedagogy, technology and law. A key objective is digital sovereignty: the project partners favour tools that store data locally only and, where possible, rely on non-commercial providers. In addition to so-called ‘proprietary software’, whose source code is protected, open-source services are frequently used. The advantage is that each university can adapt the programmes to its own requirements.
A shared platform with tools for digital teaching
The second major project on digital teaching is the ‘Digital Teaching Hub Lower Saxony’ initiative, launched in 2024. The main aim is to establish a network that, amongst other things, provides scenarios, tools and services for digital teaching. All 20 higher education institutions in Lower Saxony are involved. The state is funding the project with 25 million euros, of which the University of Oldenburg will receive just under 1.2 million euros.
“Digitalisation has long since become a central theme in teaching; this development is irreversible,” states Dr Norbert Kleinefeld from the new University Strategy Unit – with a focus on teaching. Together with Isabel Müskens, head of the unit, he is responsible for managing SOUVER@N on behalf of the University of Oldenburg. In their view, supporting teaching staff in the use of digital methods is an ongoing task. “It is essential to respond quickly and flexibly to new developments and thus continuously improve the quality of teaching,” says Kleinefeld. Networking with other higher education institutions is also important: to ensure that not every institution has to reinvent the wheel, joint solutions are increasingly being developed. “We all benefit from bringing together different areas of expertise,” says the co-project leader.
Access to a range of helpful tools
Whilst DLHN has only just got underway, SOUVER@N is in the final stages. Among the results is, for example, a collection of digital tools for lecturers that are available online. These include software for creating teaching materials or conducting surveys during lectures, as well as for scheduling appointments, producing videos or collaborating on a digital whiteboard.
Some of the services are provided locally at the university, whilst others are made available via the Academic Cloud. This portal, operated by the Society for Scientific Data Processing in Göttingen, is available to all students and staff at universities and research institutions in Lower Saxony. In addition to various useful tools for research and teaching, the portal also provides access to ChatAI, a generative AI chatbot that can utilise various language models – ranging from ChatGPT-4o and Meta’s Llama to the new DeepSeek R1 AI from China. Furthermore, the portal offers options for storing data and collaborating with others.
Another outcome of SOUVER@N, for example, is an extensive collection of open learning materials – known as Open Educational Resources (OER). The Lower Saxony OER platform, twillo, features more than 1,800 teaching and learning concepts and examples of good practice across all subjects, in the form of text documents, audio files or videos. The University of Oldenburg, which coordinated the sub-project ‘Shared Teaching and Learning Materials’ here, has produced, amongst other things, an extensive series of self-study modules for students and primary school teachers, which provide basic qualifications for teaching subjects outside their specialism, such as German, mathematics and General Studies.
The SOUVER@N project team has also addressed the many questions – both big and small – that arise when using digital methods in teaching. For example, the team members have recorded podcasts on new developments in digital teaching, drawn up a checklist to determine whether a tool complies with data protection regulations, written practical tips on various tools, and launched a video series explaining what needs to be considered when making OER available for higher education teaching. This covers topics such as accessibility, licensing and the reusability of materials. Dr Janine Horn has produced various papers on legal issues, in particular on data protection, image rights and other copyright matters, the use of AI, the recognition of e-learning formats as credits, and legally compliant examination regulations for online examinations.
Greater cross-university collaboration
To improve collaboration, the project partners are also launching a cross-university training programme, for which a pool of trainers is due to be available shortly. Various online meetings for project participants and support staff in the field of digital teaching provide an opportunity to exchange ideas and network. In a joint self-study module, the ‘eTutor programme’, the participating universities aim to teach the media-didactic fundamentals of digital teaching in future.
The project partners are now building on these results in the Lower Saxony-wide initiative ‘Digitale Lehre Hub Niedersachsen’. The University of Oldenburg is involved in the steering group for two sub-projects: One, led by the University of Osnabrück, focuses on the use of AI in studies, teaching and examinations; the second, led by Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences, aims to discover, test and make available further innovative teaching and learning tools across higher education institutions.
Susanne Schorer, who regularly runs workshops on topics such as ‘Effective Prompting’, is convinced of the benefits of new AI technologies for teaching: In her view, chatbots could not only help lecturers plan seminars but also make their work easier in other ways – for example, by enabling them to gather information more quickly or structure large amounts of data in a very short time. AI tools also open up new possibilities for students: the programmes could, for example, serve as learning buddies, test knowledge or encourage self-reflection. Norbert Kleinefeld is certain: “These new technical possibilities will help us to further improve the quality of teaching.” The structures established as part of the DLHN project are intended to enable lecturers and students, in the long term, to deal with emerging technologies and utilise them to great advantage in academic teaching.
