On Monday 9 December 2013, a delegation from the China University Of Mining And Technology led by Prof. Dr Kuang visited the Very Large Business Applications department at Carl von Ossietzky University. In addition to exchanging expertise and discussing potential co-operation in the fields of post-mining and sustainability, the focus was also on identifying possible partnerships and working together on exchange programmes.

From the 2nd to 6th December 2013 the third DASIK Module with its topic "Mobile Computing" is carried out at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Participants from South African companies such as Aspen Pharmacare, BranSystems, Business Connexion, Creative IT, SYSPRO, UTi Worldwide and Volkswagen Group South Africa as well as students from NMMU, Rhodes University, University of Cape Town and of the Free State learn about the development of mobile applications. In detail, the participants are getting an insight what are the main concepts with regards to UI design, agile software engineering and hands-on app development. The course incorporates groups from Software Engineering and Business Informatics to enforce a transfer of knowledge on engineering software systems to enable sustainable development of practical applications. Besides the theoretical concepts in mobile computing the participants are developing a WildlifeAfrica-application in Android. The one week course is conducted by Prof. Dr Janet Wesson and Dr Lester Cowley (Computing Science, NMMU) together with colleagues from University of Oldenburg, Germany Prof. Dr Andreas Winter (Software Engineering Group) and Dirk Peters (Business Information Systems, VLBA). Furthermore guest lecturers from IBM, Microsoft and SYSPRO talk about their software products and future directions in the field of mobile computing. DASIK Mobile Computing Course is conducted at NMMU, South Africa.

As part of the DAAD-funded project Developing Sustainability (DevSus), Frank Medel González from the Universidad de Santa Clara (Cuba) has a research stay in the Department of Business Information Systems (VLBA) on the topic of operational environmental information systems in production.

As part of the Erasmus Mundus project Target 2, Dipl. Inf. Mansur Sharipov (Technological University of Tajikistan) will realise a short-term stay (staff exchange) in the Department of Information Systems (VLBA).

On Wednesday 13 November 2013, a workshop on "Big Data and Predictive Analytics" was held in Walldorf with representatives from SAP AG, the University of Oldenburg, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jorge Marx Gómez, Andreas Solsbach and Viktor Dmitriyev, and the Poznan University of Economics, Prof. Witold Abramowicz.

On the 29th of October 2013, Viktor Dmitriyev and Marat Abilov presented their research topics in the VLBA department. Viktor's presentation described state-of-the-art in performing complex analytical tasks over Big Data by applying User-Defined Functions without data migration. Marat's presentation reported the problems and ideas of transformation from business process-based and goal-based software requirements models to object-oriented software design models in the context of Model Driven Architecture.

On the 21st of October 2013, Roberto Pérez López de Castro and Pablo Michel Marín Ortega presented their research topics in the VLBA department. Roberto's presentation described his research entitled: "Framework for semantic supported modelling and orchestration of logistic integrated processes, with focus on Supply Chain". Pablo had then presented his actual status in his PhD research: "Framework for Semantic Support to Business Intelligence Design Integrating Business and Technological Domains".

The PhD Students Roberto Pérez López de Castro and Pablo Michel Marín Ortega are currently staying at the department Business Information Systems / Very Large Business Applications (VLBA) for a research residence.

Experts in the fields of material and energy flows have come together in north-west Germany to pool their expertise and coordinate joint activities. The aim is to create a central point of contact in the region for sustainability in companies, resource efficiency and ecological evaluation of products and processes, as well as for engineering and IT solutions.
The newly founded working group has now also gone online with a website:
www.stoffstrom-nordwest.de/
The working group brings together expertise in the field of material and energy flows from the institutes at Bremen University of Applied Sciences, the University of Bremen and Carl von Ossietzky University. The research departments are directly involved:

• COAST - Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research
• Department of Technology Design and Development at the Faculty of Production Engineering at the University of Bremen (headed by Prof. Dr Arnim von Gleich)
• Institute for Integrated Product Development at the Faculty of Production Engineering at the University of Bremen (headed by Prof. Dr Klaus-Dieter Thoben)
• Institute for Environmental and Biotechnology at Bremen University of Applied Sciences (headed by Prof. Dr.-Ing. H. Albers) in cooperation with the Institute for Energy and Circular Economy (headed by Dr Martin Wittmaier)
• Department of Information Systems - Very Large Business Applications (headed by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jorge Marx Gómez)

Further information is available from the spokespersons of the working group:
Dr Stefan Gößling Reisemann, University of Bremen, email:
or
Dr.-Ing. Alexandra Pehlken, University of Oldenburg, email:

The management meeting of Target and Target II was successfully held in the time between the 14th and the 16th of October 2013. It took place at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden.
Representatives of the seven European partners, one representative from each partner country, and three external experts gathered in Stockholm to discuss progress of the two projects and reflect on past events. Main themes of the meeting included progress reports of students participating in both projects, extraordinary events and problems, best practices to follow, and pitfalls to avoid.
University of Oldenburg was represented by Ammar Memari , who presented the progress of the 19 students supported by the projects and participated in the held discussions.

On 26 and 27 September 2013 the kick-off meeting of the Eureka SD project took place in Oldenburg, Germany. Partners from 9 Latin American and 7 European States discussed the opportunities for students and staff at different academic levels of study to spend a mobility period abroad for the purpose of studying, teaching, training and research within the Eureka SD project. The project is supported by the Erasmus Mundus programme of the European Union and offers 315 mobilities in total. More information about the topics covered, the types of mobility and the target groups addressed, will soon be available on the project's website.

Homepage: www.eureka-sd-project.eu
Email:

As part of the international project "Developing and Strengthening Industry-driven Knowledge-transfer between developing Countries" (DASIK for short), a workshop entitled "Inspiring Africa" was held on 18 and 19 September 2013 at the PFL Cultural Centre. Organised by project coordinator Prof. Dr. Jorge Marx Gómez from the University of Oldenburg (Business Informatics), representatives from German and African companies and universities spoke on both days about the constantly changing requirements in today's IT world. In addition to a status report on the DASIK project, existing co-operations between Germany and Africa (especially South Africa) were consolidated and new co-operation opportunities were developed. The participating companies were given the opportunity to report on their own experiences and initiate new contacts. To this end, a so-called "business-science speed dating" event was held on the second day, during which scientists and companies were able to discuss specific IT-related issues. Guests included a delegation from South Africa and Tanzania. Speakers at the workshop included First City Councillor Silke Meyn, Roland Hentschel (Economic Development Agency of the City of Oldenburg), Prof. Dr Bernd Siebenhühner (Vice President for Young Scientists and Quality Management) and Ursula Hardenbicker (Head of Department at the project sponsor DAAD).

Until October 4th, Edgar León from the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes in Mexico will be going to stay at the department Business Information Systems / Very Large Business Applications (VLBA) while working on his thesis entitled: "Design and evaluation of a monitoring and control process of IT services metrics: Case LABDC-UAA (Laboratory of Data centre of UAA)". The main purpose is identifying and implementing an appropriate unique process to monitor and control operations metrics IT Services, Which is based on the main frameworks and standards of IT service managment like ITIL and ISO20000.

On Tuesday 10 September 2013, a delegation of Colombian university lecturers from the Institucion Unniversitara visited the Department of Information Systems to discuss cooperation ideas. Of particular interest was the search for cooperation partners, the identification of possible partnerships and exchange programmes. Hugo Alberto Gonzalez - Academic Vicepresident, Yesenia Perea - Head of Cooperation Office, Beatriz Marín - Computer Science Director, John Hamilton Sepúlveda - Language Centre Director were able to discuss the development of joint projects with Prof. Andreas Winter - Software Engineering, Prof. Oliver Theel - System Software and Distributed Systems and Prof. Jorge Marx Gómez - Business Informatics at the University of Oldenburg.

Dr Yaser Mowafi and Dr Dhiah el Diehn I. Abou-Tair from the German-Jordanian University, Amman, Jordan had held a presentation entitled: "A Context Aware Security Framework for Enterprise Ubiquitous Environments". In this presentation, they explained the main research entry points that they are going to conduct during a 2 months research visit financed by the DFG.

The second module, Corporate Environmental Management Information Systems (CEMIS), from the DASIK project was carried out successfully. The course was held from 15th to 19th of July 2013 in the Computing Sciences Department on the South Campus of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Over 30 delegates from various DASIK partner institutions attended the course which covered topics like Sustainability Reporting, Environmental impact and protection of Enterprises, Sustainable Development, Environmental policies and legislation, Material Flow Management and Life-Cycle Management as well as IT and Green Initiatives. The presenting lectures, Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Jorge Marx Gómez and Mr. Nils Giesen from the University of Oldenburg and Prof. André Calitz from the NMMU as well as all participants of the course were thankful for the great opportunity taking part in the DASIK project.

Tariq Mahmoud, research assistant at the Department of Information Systems / VLBA, has successfully completed his thesis defence on the topic of "Lightweight Semantic-enabled Enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture". The examining board consisted of Dr Ute Vogel, Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez, Prof Klaus Turowski and Prof Oliver Theel. After completing his thesis defence, the newly minted "Dr" hosted a celebratory champagne reception. We would like to congratulate Tariq Mahmoud on successfully completing his doctorate!

From 10 to 12 July 2013, the 6th international conference "Information Technologies in Environmental Engineering" (ITEE2013) took place at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany, on the topics of environmental informatics, interdisciplinarity and the role of information and communication technologies. As part of the IT-for-Green project, Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez and Andreas Solsbach took part in the conference and presented the paper "Municipalities and Sustainable Tourism - Challenges, Requirements and Added Value" by Andreas Solsbach and Barbara Rapp. Other participants in the VLBA department conference were Marat Abilov with the paper "Influence of environmental protection requirements on object-oriented software design".

After a 7-year break, the
project group sports tournament took place again on 3 July 2013. This time, the 12 teams competed against each other in the
sport of boules. Impressions of the tournament can be found here:

www.dropbox.com/sh/c9fd05798svjafn/1vR7CKsDXS

www.dropbox.com/sh/n4u8rzx211gmasd/n-VsgvFKVj

On 20 June 2013, abat AG held an information day in co-operation with the University of Oldenburg, Department of Information Systems I / Very Large Business Applications. The information day gave an impression of the current activities of abat AG and the VLBA department, in particular the topic of SAP HANA and current funding opportunities were discussed in the context of proof-of-concepts by both partners. On the part of the university, Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez and Andreas Solsbach gave presentations at the Info Day, supported by Andreas Messler and Viktor Dmitriyev. We welcomed numerous guests from the region to the information day, who took part in a lively and animated discussion at the successful information event.

On 27 and 28 May 2013, the International Electromobility Conference will take place in Berlin with high-calibre participation from business, research and politics. The German government is also making a clear statement in favour of electromobility with presentations led by Angela Merkel, Philipp Rösler and Peter Ramsauer. The University of Oldenburg also took part in the conference as part of the showcase for electromobility.

On Monday, 13 May 2013, the results of the Cuberunner project group were presented at a two-hour event. The results were presented by the students in three subgroup presentations and a technology comparison in front of around 20 students and various company representatives. The topics of analytical customer relationship management, sustainable mobility and smart wind farm control were addressed using a wide range of technologies, including the use of SAP HANA.

On Friday 8th of March the COAST-Team and the Jacobs University in Bremen were jointly organising a workshop on "Energy Efficiency on Campus". The workshop was an outcome of the EU project Hansa Energy Corridor where Jacobs University and Oldenburg University are partners. A third workshop related to this topic will be held at Groningen University in the near future since Groningen University is also a HEC-partner. The German session was dominated by research tasks at Oldenburg and Jacobs University. After an introduction by Vice-President Prof. Siebenhüner and a focus on university demands for energy savings, Prof. Bergholz (Jacobs University) was focusing on the potential of energy efficiency to reduce costs. The core question was how to implement energy efficiency on campus and which technologies can be used at which site under which conditions. Claudius Hardt (Jacobs University) was then demonstrating the potential of LED bulbs and their life cycle performance compare to fluorescent bulbs. Especially with respect to recycling issues the LEDs are showing huge benefits compare to fluorescent bulbs. The last presentation before the intensive working groups was focusing on "Sustainable Environmental Reporting" by Prof. Marx Gómez.
In the afternoon three sessions were focusing on different topics chosen by the workshop participants:
1) Sustainable Environmental Reporting
2) Energy Efficiency on Campus - a business case?
We thank all participants for the fruitful discussion and the HEC funding body for making this workshop a successful meeting. Further information can be provided by the organisers Alexandra Pehlken (alexandra.pehlken@uol.de) and Marius Buchmann (Buchmann@bremer-energie-institut.de)

We welcome Arief Abdurrakhman, a student of Department of Engineering Physics (Institute Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya, Indonesia) to the VLBA. Arief is a master student of Engineering Physics and is currently focussing on biogas production. During his 1 month stay at Oldenburg University he is involved in the GroenGas project. Arief's stay is funded by the DevSus project. We wish Arief a fruitful and interesting stay at Oldenburg University.

As part of the "Environmental Information Systems Knowledge Exchange Project"(EISKE), Dr Alexandra Pehlken and Andreas Solsbach were guests at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, from 23 February to 2 March 2013 as part of the project's conclusion.

During his stay there, discussions were held with the Vice-President for International Support, Dr Sibongile Muthwa, Dr André Calitz and Dr Brenda Scholtz and other NMMU staff on the continuation of co-operation in projects. Furthermore, discussions were held with the students supervised in the EISKE project and other NMMU students on the topic of sustainability.

In order to strengthen potential applications, industrial contacts have been cultivated and contact has been made at several meetings with

• Lumotech (Pty) Ltd (Uitenhage, South Africa),
• Shatterprufe (Pty) Ltd (Port Elizabeth, South Africa),
• Borbet Sa (Pty) Ltd (Uitenhage, South Africa) and
• Volkswagen SA (Pty) Ltd (Uitenhage, South Africa)

as well as contacts with industry and administration in East London, South Africa. Initial contact has also been made with the Durban University of Technology as part of these discussions.

As part of the Magdeburg Research and Competence Cluster (MRCC for short) colloquium, doctoral candidates Tariq Mahmoud and Dirk Peters from the Department of Information Systems VLBA at the University of Oldenburg gave short presentations on their doctoral topics. In addition to many interested students, Prof Dr Klaus Turowski, head of Magdeburg's Information Systems department, Prof Dr Hans Jürgen Scheruhn from the Harz University of Applied Sciences and Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez from the University of Oldenburg also took part. Mr Mahmoud spoke on the topic of "Lightweight Semantic-enabled Enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture", while Mr Peters spoke on the topic of "Adaptive teaching and learning systems for training support on ERP systems".

In January 2013 the VLBA hosted a visitor from Tashkent University in Uzbekistan. The exchange was made possible through funding of the Target project. Manzura Ahmedova is working as a Teaching Assistant at the University of Tashkent and her visit at Oldenburg University was intended to get some new insights into the German teaching system. Manzura presented her University and the curriculum at the end of January before she was leaving Germany again. Currently the VLBA is also hosting 2 PhD students funded through the Target Project for some years: Viktor Dmitriyev from Kazakhstan and Marat Abilov from Uzbekistan.

A co-operation project with Volkswagen AG, which started at the beginning of the year, deals with the research area of "IT supplier management". It is based at the new research area "ExploIT Dynamics" at the Department of Computing Science. In addition to Prof Dr Marx Gómez, the Oldenburg Computing Science experts Prof Dr Andreas Winter and Prof Dr Oliver Theel are also involved in the project.

Over the next three years, an IT system is to be developed that takes into account the use of various technologies for user interaction and simplifies the supplier service at Volkswagen. Students will also be given the opportunity to familiarise themselves with work processes in the industrial environment of Volkswagen AG.

From 24.04.13 to 26.04.13 the 15th conference of the specialist group Betriebliche Umweltinformationssysteme der Gesellschaft für Computing Science e.V. (in short: 5th BUIS-Tage) will take place in Oldenburg. The 5th BU IS Days are a forum for providing information on the current status of BUIS, presenting new ideas and solutions and discussing them intensively in a panel of experts from science and practice. This time, the focus will be on green IT and energy efficiency, material flow management, green production & logistics, green software, sustainability management and communication, sustainable mobility as well as material efficiency and recycling. The English-language workshop "Energy Aware Software Engineering and Development" (EASED) will take place on 25 April 2013. Further information can be found on the conference website.

Call for Participation (PDF)

From 05.03.13 - 09.03.1305.03.13 - 09.03.13, the IT-for-Green research project will be presented at the joint stand of the state of Lower Saxony (Hall 9, Stand C 50). A limited number of free tickets are available for interested parties. If you are interested and would like to visit us, please contact us by email at (The issue of tickets will be recorded. We will make a note of the name, email address and institution).

This year, the project"IT-for-Green: Environmental, energy and resource management with BUIS of the next generation" will be represented at the joint stand of the state of Lower Saxony (Hall 9, Stand C 50) from 05/03/13 to 09/03/13. The research project is working in a broad Lower Saxony network on concepts and innovative methods for operational environmental protection. Improved material and energy efficiency systems are becoming increasingly important for the economy. Production-integrated environmental protection, material flow management and recycling are becoming the corporate norm, and consumers are demanding sustainability reporting and life cycle assessment. The resulting business challenges are complex and can only be mastered by using the latest IT systems. At CeBIT, the scientists will be presenting selected software modules of a next-generation corporate environmental information system.

On 25 January 2013, Prof. Dr Jorge Marx Gómez gave a guest lecture on "The contribution of IT to sustainable development" as part of the celebratory colloquium for Prof. Dr Michael von Hauff on the topic of "Sustainable development from different perspectives".

The project, which is funded by the BMBF with around €300,000, aims to implement master's degree courses and training programmes in the field of business environmental information systems (BUIS) at universities in Ghana, Tanzania and Mozambique. The VLBA department is building on its rich experience in exporting degree programmes to Latin America.

The curricula are developed together with the partners in the target countries. The results of a survey of alumni from African universities and local companies will also be incorporated. The project is headed by Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez. Prof Dr Horst Junker (IMBC GmbH Berlin) is contributing his expertise in the field of environmental informatics to the project as a partner. The involvement of IMBC GmbH, which advises companies in the field of environmental and information management, also ensures the practical relevance of the study modules and training units. The project will run for two years.

On 24 January 2013, the initial meeting of the project partners of the ICT Services project of the Lower Saxony Electromobility Showcase took place at the research airport in Braunschweig. Among the participants were three employees from the Information Systems I / VLBA department, who will be working on parts of the "Customer-orientated mobility" project over the next three years. Further information on the project can be found on the university's press pages.

As part of the "Erasmus Mundus Information Seminar - practical tips for applying for Action 2" organised by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), on 17 January 2013, research associate Dipl.-Wirt.Inform. Andreas Solsbach gave a presentation on "Successful application in Action 2 - a practical example: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine: Enhancing in ENPI Countries through Clean Technologies and Research-related Activities (ELECTRA)".

The DASIK project team is pleased to confirm that the first course, Business Process Management, is scheduled to be presented in South Africa at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and all plans are on track. The course will take place from 4th to the 8th February 2013 in their Computing Sciences Department on the South Campus of the NMMU. So far 20 attendees have confirmed and registered. The attendees are staff and students from the University of Oldenburg, University of Dar es Salaam and NMMU as well as employees of Volkswagen, Seda NMB ICT Incubator, SYSPRO and Bran Systems.

The course topics are:

• Business Process Management Concepts
• Business Process Enterprise Methodologies
• Business Process Architectures
• Business Process Management and Measurment
• Understanding and Scoping Business Problems
• Software Tools for Business Process Analysis and Design

Source: www.dasik.org

As part of the EU project "HansaEnergyCorridor", we cordially invite interested students and experts from science and industry to the workshop "Towards the Hansa Energy Transition Campus" on 8 March 2013 at the University of Oldenburg.

You can expect a varied programme of scientific presentations and interdisciplinary discussions on energy efficiency in a campus environment. Read more and click here for further information.

Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez will give a lecture on the topic of How to include sustainability into energy efficiency?

We look forward to receiving your registration by 28 February 2013 from Ms Charlotte Schaeffer and Dr.-Ing. Alexandra Pehlken will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Source: blog.coast.uni-oldenburg.de