The EU-Erasmus project TARGET(Transfer of Appropriate Requirements for Global Education and Technology) offers scholarships to citizens from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The project offers mobility scholarships for students and staff from Central Asia to European partner universities. The scholarships are intended for Bachelor's students, Master's students and doctoral candidates as well as research assistants. The aim is the transfer and exchange of people, knowledge and skills in the field of higher education. As part of the TARGET project, a successful kick-off meeting was held in Stockholm from 26-29 September 2010.

As an EU educational programme, the Tempus programme has been supporting the further development and reform of the higher education sector in partner countries since 1990. The aim of the CIBELES (Curriculum Invoking Bologna-aligned Education Leading to reform in Environmental Studies) project is to promote and support an interdisciplinary approach to strengthening sustainability aspects in environmental sciences at Bachelor's, Master's and PhD level. This network comprises a total of over 30 partners from the EU and Central Asia. As part of the CIBELES project, a successful kick-off meeting was held in Göttingen on 9 December 2010.

As part of EDUCON 2011, the Department of Information Systems / VLBA is organising two workshops in the context of which papers can be submitted.
Call for Papers: EMIS The increasing demand for sustainable strategies and the success of sustainable investments put companies under pressure to consider environmental issues not only on an operational but also on a strategic level. Management is supported by so-called Environmental Management Information Systems (EMIS). In order to deal with the complexity of these systems and their use, there is a need for highly qualified personnel who have knowledge in the field of environmental management and corresponding technologies and insight into the company processes from an environmental point of view. In addition, techniques for modelling and optimising energy and material flows within the company are required in order to design, develop and use EMIS. The workshop on Environmental Management Information Systems will take place from 4 to 6 April 2011 at the Princess Sumaya University for Technology in Amman (Jordan) in conjunction with the IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference "Learning Environments and Ecosystems in Engineering Education" (EDUCON 2011). The main objective of the workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners to explore issues and challenges related to enterprise systems in higher education. Workshop leader:

• Jorge Marx Gómez
• Daniel Süpke

Deadline for submissions is 15 December 2010. Download Call for Papers EMIS
Call for Papers: ESHE Enterprise systems, such as ERP systems, are an important part of the IT infrastructure of today's organisations. Consequently, the integration of these systems plays an important role in the educational environment. Due to the high potential of these systems to visualise and simulate business and decision-making processes, enterprise systems are significant for pedagogical innovation in the field of higher education. The challenge is to utilise this potential effectively in the teaching of enterprise systems. The workshop on Enterprise Systems in Higher Education (ESHE) will take place from 4 to 6 April 2011 at the Princess Sumaya University for Technology in Amman (Jordan) in conjunction with the IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference "Learning Environments and Ecosystems in Engineering Education" (EDUCON 2011). Workshop leader:

• Jorge Marx Gómez
• Dirk Peters

Deadline for submissions is 15 December 2010. Download Call for Papers ESHE

Under the umbrella of the Dorich House Group, various European universities come together to use their expertise in research, teaching and similar activities to develop innovative collaborative work in order to maximise the international activities and influence of their members.

As part of this network, Prof. Dr Jorge Marx Gómez visited Kingston University London from 11.11.2010 to 13.11.2010 in the context of the topic "Developing Sustainability".

Last Friday, 5 November 2010, Peter Cissek, an external doctoral candidate from the Department of Information Systems / VLBA, successfully completed his thesis defence on the topic of "Strategic corporate planning in a data warehouse environment supported by a knowledge management system". The examining board was made up of Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez, Associate Prof Dr Jürgen Sauer, Prof Dr Eike Best and Dr Hans Fleischhack. At the end of the thesis defence, the newly minted "Dr" hosted a celebratory champagne reception.
We would like to congratulate Peter Cissek and wish him all the best for his future career!

We are pleased to inform you, as students of the University of Oldenburg, about an additional offer from our Business Information Systems / Very Large Business Applications (VLBA) department in cooperation with SAP Education.

In addition to our regular courses with SAP content, we are offering students from the University of Oldenburg and all other universities in Germany the exclusive opportunity to take part in a training course including official SAP certification. The course from 14 March to 25 March 2011 and a subsequent certification exam is aimed at students from all degree programmes and Schools.

TERP10 stands for "Training Enterprise Resource Planning in 10 days" and is being offered for the third time as a two-week block event during the lecture-free period. During the course, you will acquire knowledge from the field of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and also gain practical experience in working with SAP systems. The course concludes with an examination to become an "SAP Certified Solution Architect ERP-Integration of Business Processes". After passing the exam, you will receive an official SAP certificate that is fully recognised on the job market.

Of course, we are also available for personal counselling Andreas Solsbach or Dirk Peters. Registration for the TERP10 course is now open.

We hope you enjoy the course and look forward to welcoming you to one of our next events.

In cooperation with the Automotive Department at the Institute of Transportation Systems Technology of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), a contribution by Dr Frank Köster (DLR) and Dipl.-Oec. Benjamin Wagner vom Berg, from the Department of Information Systems / VLBA, has been published. The article, entitled"Experiencing the advantage - DLR and the University of Oldenburg investigate boundary conditions for future electromobility", deals with technical, logistical and economic boundary conditions for the success of the electromobility concept.

The nordwest2050 project is helping to adapt the north-west to the consequences of climate change and maintain its competitiveness - technical and institutional innovations for climate adaptation are being developed together with business partners and the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan region. In the context of this project, Nana Karlstetter gave a lecture yesterday, Tuesday, entitled: Development of a strategy for the climate-adapted regulation of land use conflicts in the project nordwest2050 - Connections to Business Informatics .

For the eighth time, the technical committee "Informatics for Environmental Protection" of the Gesellschaft für Computing Science has awarded a prize for student work in the field of environmental informatics. Dipl.-Inform. Daniel Meyerholt, doctoral candidate and research assistant at the Department of Information Systems / VLBA, successfully participated and achieved second place. In addition to prize money, he will have the opportunity to present his work at EnviroInfo 2010. We congratulate him on this success and wish him continued success.

Since September 2009, the international cooperation network Developing Sustainability has been established at the University of Oldenburg, in which lecturers and students are dedicated to the topic of ensuring ecological sustainability in development cooperation. The project is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD ) as part of the programme for subject-related partnerships with universities in developing countries. As part of the Developing Sustainability network, a workshop on"Renewable Energy and Climate Change (and Adaptation) in Coastal and Rural Areas" was held at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa on 2 and 3 September. Prof Dr Marx Gómez from the Department of Information Systems / VLBA was represented.

• Business Information Systems / VLBA
• Business Information Systems / VLBA

Prof. Dr. Marx Gómez was invited to visit China from 16 - 22 August 2010 as part of the Yinzhi Programme of the Chinese central government. The purpose of this programme is to promote scientific exchange. With this programme, China is trying to deepen and consolidate scientific contacts with foreign experts. In this context, Professor Marx Gómez has been invited to give lectures at Chinese universities (topics: "The application of Environmental Information Management System (EMIS) in eco-industrial park", and: "Theory and Practice of German Eco-Industrial Park"). However, the actual aim of the trip is to discuss the possibility of joint research projects between scientific institutions in Tianjin and Oldenburg.

The Chinese partner is Prof Dr Xueqiang Lu, Deputy Director of the Tianjin Academy of Environmental Sciences.

Prof. Dr Marx Gómez has been invited to Damascus as a keynote speaker at a symposium (BISY 2010 - 1st National Symposium of Business Intelligence in Syria) from 4 - 5 October 2010. Prof Marx Gómez will give a keynote speech on the topic "Business Intelligence Case Studies in Germany".

Under the patronage of:

Mr Abdullah Aldardari, vice prime minister for economic affairs, minister of telecommunications, minister of economy, and various other ministers and high decisions makers.

As an EU educational programme, the Tempus programme has been supporting the further development and reform of the higher education sector in partner countries since 1990. The aim of the CIBELES (Curriculum Invoking Bologna-aligned Education Leading to reform in Environmental Studies) project is to promote and support an interdisciplinary approach to strengthening sustainability aspects in environmental sciences at Bachelor's, Master's and PhD level. This network comprises a total of over 30 partners from the EU and Central Asia. It is coordinated by the University of Göttingen. The Department of Information Systems / VLBA at the University of Oldenburg will primarily develop the doctoral candidate training programme.

The Department of Information Systems / VLBA is a partner in an Erasmus Mundus project with Central Asia as part of the Erasmus Mundus II call, a programme to improve the quality of higher education and promote intercultural understanding through cooperation with third countries. The project is coordinated by KTH University Stockholm (Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm) and involves a further 6 EU countries. The aim is to support a total of 74 students (Master, PhD and Postgraduate) in this exchange programme. The University of Oldenburg is expecting around 11 students in the field of Computing Science / Business Informatics for the duration of the project (approx. 3 years).

Prof. Dr Kostas Karatzas from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) - the largest university in Greece with around 95,000 students - took part in the course Betriebliche Umweltinformationssysteme (BUIS) as part of his guest visit.

He was involved in the planning and implementation of the lectures and exercises as part of the course. He also gave lectures on "Environmental information services for quality of life support for citizens and authorities" and supervised a corresponding exercise course "Working for the design of an environmental Information portal: appliacation for the AQ domain". The BUIS lecture ran from 2 August 2010 to 6 August 2010 and was held as a block seminar. The course ended with a successful presentation of the exercise results by the students.

As part of the guest visit by Cristián Bravo and Sebastian Maldonado from the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Chile, the Department of Information Systems / VLBA was given lectures on the topics:

• Practical experiences from Credit Scoring projects for Chilean financial organisations
• Game Theory - Data mining model for price dynamics in financial institutions
• Feature Selection for SVR via Kernel Penalisation

was presented. Many thanks to all listeners and speakers.

• Business Information Systems / VLBA
• Business Information Systems / VLBA

At the project group day on 7 July 2010, the project group "Sustainable CRM for an electric mobility service with SOA" will be presented by the Department of Information Systems I for the coming semester. The project group builds on the highly topical subject of electromobility and develops its own innovative concepts in this area and implements them in practice. Based on existing business models (e.g. from mobile telephony), the starting point is a mobility service which, in addition to the electric car and infrastructure services, also includes other sustainable mobility services such as train journeys, car sharing, etc. The focus is on customer relationship management. The focus is on customer relationship management, as customer acceptance and customer management are decisive parameters for the success of a business model. In this context, the possibilities for integrating sustainability aspects in particular will be analysed and implemented. As a result, the prototypical realisation of a CRM system based on SOA, including the integration of mobile clients (smartphones) and social software (e.g. Facebook), is aimed for.

We look forward to a lively interest and are happy to answer any questions
benjamin.wagnervomberg@uol.de,
0441-798-4493

On 11 and 12 June 2010, the VLBA Department of Information Systems held its annual retreat. For the third time, almost 30 doctoral candidates from the department met under the direction of Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez to discuss the current status of their research. Following the individual presentations, the participants were given the opportunity to discuss further questions and new ideas. After the presentation marathon on the first day, a small barbecue was organised in the evening in the nearby district of Ammerland in excellent weather. This was followed by further presentations on the second day. The third retreat was also a great enrichment for all participants. In particular, the opportunity to socialise with all doctoral candidates outside the university was very well received by everyone. Many thanks to all listeners and speakers.

• Business Information Systems / VLBA
• Business Information Systems / VLBA
• Business Information Systems / VLBA
• Business Information Systems / VLBA

Business process integration using SAP technologies is explained on the basis of a comprehensive case study. The case study is preceded by conceptual and technical basics, in particular an introduction to the SAP PI integration platform and SAP Business Workflows. The case study in the book deals with determining the environmental impact of products and thus addresses a problem that arises in the context of different business processes and industries: in order to fulfil the customer's need for information on the environmental impact of a product, production details are collected along the value chain from raw material extraction to distribution. The data obtained in this way provides the consumer with information about the origin of the processed raw materials and the production processes used. The necessary processes are designed and implemented using the example of the product-related carbon footprint (PCF).

Further information can be found under publications.

We are pleased to inform you, as students of the University of Oldenburg, about an additional offer from our Business Information Systems / Very Large Business Applications (VLBA) department in cooperation with SAP Education.

In addition to our regular courses with SAP content, we are offering students from the University of Oldenburg and all other universities in Germany the exclusive opportunity to take part in a training course including official SAP certification. The course from 30 August to 10 September 2010 and a subsequent certification exam on 13 September 2010 is aimed at students from all fields of study and School.

TERP10 stands for "Training Enterprise Resource Planning in 10 days" and is being offered for the third time as a two-week block event during the lecture-free period. During the course, you will acquire knowledge in the field of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and also gain practical experience in working with SAP systems. The course concludes with an examination to become an "SAP Certified Solution Architect ERP-Integration of Business Processes". After passing the exam, you will receive an official SAP certificate that is fully recognised on the job market.

Of course, we are also available for personal counselling Andreas Solsbach or Dirk Peters. Registration for the TERP10 course is now open.

We hope you enjoy the course and look forward to welcoming you to one of our next events.

From 17-19 March, the Simulation in the Environmental and Geosciences Workshop of the Simulation Working Group of the Technical Committee 4.6 "Computing Science in Environmental Protection" of the Gesellschaft für Computing Science e.V. will take place in Osnabrück. As part of this workshop, Nils Giesen and Daniel Süpke will give a presentation on "ProPlaNET - web-based project planning for sustainable development" and Andreas Solsbach and Andre Schubert will give a presentation on "ICT requirements for cross-company sustainability reporting".

future e.V.: Verantwortung unternehmen and the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) once again evaluated the sustainability reports of the 150 largest companies in Germany in their 2009 ranking. For the first time, sustainability reports from small and medium-sized companies will also be assessed in a separate ranking. Patrons for both rankings are Federal Labour Minister Olaf Scholz and Dr Volker Hauff, Chair of the German Council for Sustainable Development. On 18 March 2010, a workshop on"Climate change, mandatory reporting, online or print - which way do large companies go with their sustainability reporting?" will be held at the Old Town Hall in Hanover. Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez will give a presentation on"Perspectives on sustainability reporting".

From 28.09.2009 to 30.09.2009 Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jorge Marx Gómez, Dipl.-Inf. Dipl.-Math. Jan Aalmink, Dipl.-Inf. Ammar Memari, Dr. Thomas Biskup and Dipl.-Inf. Tariq Mahmoud visited the ICT Innovations 2009 in Macedonia - the opening keynote was held by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jorge Marx Gómez. The Department of Information Systems I / VLBA presented the following papers at the conference:

• A. M. Pérez, J. M. Gómez, C. P. Risquet:

  Semantic Interaction in Enterprise Visualisation Dataflow Environments: an Exploratory Study

• R. P. L. Castro, J. M. Gómez, I. S. Mosquera:

  Semantic Supported Modeling and Orchestration of Logistic Integrated Processes, with focus on Supply Chain: Framework Design

• L. Haak, J. Aalmink, D. Peters:

  AUM and Enterprise Tomography: New Concepts for Technology Enhanced Learning for Enterprise Systems in Higher Education

• A. R. Valdés, R. A. E. Andrade, J. M. Gómez:

  Using Compensatory Fuzzy Ontology in the Decision Making Process

• T. Mahmoud, T. von der Dovenmühle, J. M. Gómez:

  Web Service Validation within Semantic SOA-based Model

• A. Memari, M. Amer, J. M. Gómez:

  A Beehive-like Multi-agent Solution to Enhance Findability of Semantic Web Services and Facilitate Personalisation within a P2P Network

• J. Aalmink, L. Balloul, J. Glagau, J. M. Gómez:

  Enterprise Tomography driven Governance of Federated ERP in a Cloud

• T. Biskup:

  New Perspective on Efficient Software Development by example of the WODOMI project

• T. Biskup, M. Gusev, G. Manceski, P. Mitrevski:

  A new solution for workflow and document management used for University management in WODOMI project

Conference website: ict-act .org/ICT-Innovations-09/

From 07.10.2009 to 09.10.2009 Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jorge Marx Gómez and Dipl.-Inf. Tariq Mahmoud attended the Conference on ENTERprise Information System - CENTERS 2009 in Portugal - the opening keynote was held by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jorge Marx Gómez. The Department of Information Systems I / VLBA presented the following papers at the conference:

• J. M. Gómez:

  Corporate Environmental Management Information Systems - The next Generation

• T. Mahmoud:

  Semantic SOA-Based Model to be Applied in Business Environments

Conference website: www.eiswatch.org/centeris2009/

In the article entitled "Secure Service Rating in Federated Software Systems based on SOA", Dr Nico Brehm (Head of Research & Development at RepuGraph) and Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez describe a new approach for the secure rating of software components in service-oriented application systems. The principle presented is based on the decentralised management of evaluations by the service providers themselves and takes into account various encryption functions that counteract the potential manipulation of evaluations by service providers.

The article was published as a book chapter in the reference book "Web Services Security Development and Architecture: Theoretical and Practical Issues" (ISBN: 978-1-60566-950-2 ). The authors will be happy to answer any questions about the approach.

The ertemis workshop organised yesterday, Wednesday, at OFFIS at Escherweg 2 in Oldenburg was a complete success.

NWZ Online reports:

"The added value of using next-generation "operational environmental information technology" ("BUIS 2.0") is considerable, said Professor Jorge Marx Gomez from Oldenburg, who was in charge of the workshop. It has been shown that companies can also "save costs and make a profit" with appropriately integrated measures for ecological goals. Among other things, material and energy can be saved and legal requirements can be met. Marx Gomez spoke to SMEs and IT experts in favour of an "interdisciplinary competence and research network" ("ertemis") in this area. In the end, there will be free software for companies."

The national pact between politics, business, science and the media aims to change the image of STEM (Mathematics, Computing Science, Natural Sciences, Technology) professions in society, to get young women interested in scientific and technical degree programmes and to attract female university graduates to careers in business. The pact is part of the German government's "Advancement through Education" qualification initiative. With the MINT BEI SAP event, SAP is setting a new course in its efforts to inspire women to study and pursue a career in the natural sciences and technology and to show them future prospects and opportunities in this field. The event will take place on 10 February 2010 at the headquarters in Walldorf. APPLY HERE! The application must be accompanied by a CV and a current certificate of achievement. Please note: the number of places available is limited. SAP reserves the right to make a qualitative selection of the applications received. SAP will of course reimburse your travel expenses (2nd class rail travel or €0.30/kilometre if travelling by car; maximum €200). Catering will be provided for you on site!

The results of the Zero Emission Park model project were presented by Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez and Veronika Wolf in Bottrop's Malakoff Tower to the companies involved, the city and the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development. The video recording can be viewed by clicking on the TV Emscher-Lippe logo. The Zero Emission Park model project is a cross-state project for the development of sustainable industrial estates in Germany. This process has been initiated and started at four locations, including Bottrop.

Further information on the project can be found at: Projects --> Zero Emission Park

As part of the project group Sustainability Reporting on the Web 2.0 (PG Storm), Jana Gebauer from the Institute for Ecological Economy Research will give a lecture on 27 January 2010 from 12:00 to 14:00 on the ranking of sustainability reports. The event will take place in the university library.

As part of the Sustainable Development Research Workshop of the Dorich House Group (organised and conducted by the Department of Information Systems I / VLBA), scientists from the universities
met from 14 to 15 December 2009.

• Mykolas Romeris University Vilnius,
• Istanbul Bilgi University,
• Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University,
• Université Lumière Lyon 2,
• Kingston University and
  
• University of Oldenburg

to coordinate joint research and teaching activities. The thematic focus of the workshop was on the areas of Mobility and Energy, Spatial Governance, Economic Behaviour and Sustainability, Knowledge and Action and Material Manufacturing & Design.

Do you want to improve your operational sustainability activities (material and energy efficiency, reporting and environmental management) and reduce your costs at the same time? Then help us with a mutual knowledge transfer between science and practice. On 27 January 2010, a workshop of the Interdisciplinary Competence and Research Network for Next Generation Business Environmental Information Systems (BUIS 2.0) will take place at OFFIS at Escherweg 2 in Oldenburg. The workshop is being organised by the University of Oldenburg, ecco ecology + communication Unternehmensberatung GmbH and the Oldenburg Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

Invitation and programme of the workshop

The project "Solution and Services Engineering for Measuring, Monitoring, and Management of Organisations' Environmental Performance Indicators" (OEPI), funded by the EU's Seventh Framework Programme, will be launched on 1 February 2010.

The 2 ½ year project is being carried out in co-operation with SAP AG (Germany), Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg (Germany), University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), Siemens AG (Germany), Kone (Finland), VTT Technical Research Center of Finland (Finland) and Télefonica (Spain).