planned for: Winter term 2012/2013 - Summer term 2013

Nowadays, when people talk about the use and functionality of business application systems, the focus is usually on integrating as many areas of the company as possible. The endeavour of today's business application systems - especially ERP systems - is therefore to focus on an all-round product that ideally covers the entire functionality of a company. The primary aim is therefore to integrate data, functions and processes from all areas within a company.

A critical point of this development is the confrontation of the user with the ever-increasing complexity of the systems. As a result, the number of possible navigation options in a system is constantly increasing, making it more and more difficult for users to learn how to use these systems and to utilise them efficiently in day-to-day operations. However, companies demand precisely this training in large operational applications, such as ERP systems, from today's graduates, as they have great potential for the illustration, visualisation and simulation of business and decision support processes (Ask et al. 2008).

Another problem is the lack of extensive, didactically prepared training materials in the form of case studies and the like. Although there are often extensive theoretical introductions to the use of software, these contain too few practical elements overall. Materials for training on the systems themselves, on the other hand, are often based on training materials from the manufacturers, which are aimed more at familiarising the (later) user with individual functions or modules of the software (e.g. IDES case studies from SAP® AG or Cronus AG from Microsoft® Dynamics). Although these training measures receive extensive technical support from institutions such as the SAP® AG University Competence Centres (UCC) or the Microsoft® Partner Network (Courant 2008), the process view is still often lacking due to the primary focus on system functionality. Students therefore find it difficult to understand the background as to why they should carry out certain transactions.

Furthermore, didactic approaches such as knowledge checks, reflections on previously learnt material or ideas for group and individual work are rarely given sufficient attention (Hans et al. 2008). The strategic aspect behind many decisions often remains unconsidered and therefore incomprehensible to the learner.

The overriding aim of the ALEBIS project group is to improve teaching and training in business application systems, in particular ERP systems, using new technologies. In concrete terms, this means that existing training material (e.g. the IDES case studies) and existing learning software and concepts (ERPsim, PROBAS, ERP-Elearn, etc.) will first be analysed and examined for potential improvements. For the most part, this should be worked on by individual students during the seminar phase so that all participants have roughly the same level of knowledge. This can also be based on an evaluation that has already been carried out as part of a Diplom thesis. Building on this seminar work, application scenarios are then to be developed which should enable future users or learners to learn how to use operational application systems with technological support and to understand the underlying business processes better than is currently the case.

Based on an expandable open source ERP system, the selection of which should also be part of the project group's work, a mechanism must then be developed and implemented that enables learners to carry out the learning tasks resulting from the application scenarios directly on the open source ERP system. To this end, it is particularly important that an architecture is developed for the planned ESHE that is generically designed so that (theoretically) any ERP system can be equipped with the learning functionality and the learning content can also be generated by lecturers themselves in a standardised format. To monitor learning progress, the extended open source ERP system should also be able to log individual user activity, for example by using trace files, and visualise it for later use. For this purpose, it is important that a kind of "ideal path" is modelled for the learning tasks created (target state), which can be compared and evaluated with the steps carried out by the learners (actual state). This comparison should enable teachers, but also the learners themselves, to reflect on the behaviour, consolidate the knowledge just acquired or provide information about existing deficits but also strengths of the learner.

For questions and information, please contact the following persons:

• Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez
• Dirk Peters

Ask U, Juell-Skielse G, Magnusson J, Olsen Dag H, Päivärinta T (2008) Enterprise Systems as Vehicles of Pedagogic Innovation - Enterprise System Inclusion in Higher Education. In: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Enterprise Systems, Accounting and Logistics (5th ICESAL '08), 7-8 July 2008, Crete Island, Greece.

Courant J (2008) Examples of the use of SAP software in business informatics education in the context of a learning model. In: Bichler M, Hess T, Krcmar H, Lechner U, Matthes F, Picot A, Speitkamp B, Wolf P (Eds.) Proceedings of the Multiconference on Information Systems (MKWI 2008), Munich.

Hans D, Marx Gómez J, Peters D, Solsbach A (2008) Case study-design for Higher Education - A Demonstration in the Data Warehouse Environment. In: Abramowicz W, Flejter D (eds) Business Information Systems Workshops (BIS 2009), Poznan, Poland.