Oldenburg University organized the third EU training workshop in Oldenburg, Germany for the Lebanese and Syrian partners. This workshop had been successfully taken place at 08-13 of November 2015. Eight staff members from the Lebanese Partner Universities and ten staff members from the Syrian Partner Universities had been trained in this workshop. The main three training areas focused on linking entrepreneurship with industry, advanced business research methods and new teaching methods.

As part of the project „Doctoral Education in EMIS“ with the partner institutions from Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania Dr.-Ing. Andreas Solsbach held a lecture on the topic "Sustainability Management" from the 19th up to the 23rd October 2015 in Maputo, Mozambique, at the Universidade Pedagógica Moçambique.

On 23 October 2015 the research associates Nils Giesen und Teresa Haberberger as well as two project managers of the abat AG presented the project Business Case Sustainability at the team event of the project partner. Contents of the presentation of the joint project were the project objectives, basic principals of sustainability, the milestone planning as well as the presentation of the latest research results. The topic generated a lot of interest.

On November 16th 2015 Klaas Schmidt successfully defended his doctoral thesis with the topic "Wissensbasierte Entscheidungsunterstützungssysteme zur Übertragung und Wiederanwendung von Erfahrungswissen aus Entscheidungsprozessen". The VLBA department congratulates warmly.

From 7th to 8th October 2015, the final meeting of the DAAD-funded project „Environmental Management Information Systems for Subsaharan Universities - CEMIS"“ took place at the department of Business Information Systems / Very Large Business Applications (VLBA). In addition, the kick-off meeting of the project "Doctoral Education in Environmental Management Information Systems - DEMIS" which is also funded by the DAAD was held at the department too. Participants were representatives of the University of Oldenburg, the University of Munich, as well as the project partners from Accra (Ghana), Maputo (Mozambique) and Arusha (Tanzania).

On Tuesday, 6th October 2015 the 3rd meeting in the project ‘Sustainable Consumption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the Digital Societ’ took place at the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg. The interdisciplinary team comprises researchers from the Universities in Oldenburg, Osnabrück and Lüneburg and covers a broad spectrum of research backgrounds such as social sciences, information systems, psychology, sustainability management, innovation research and marketing. Together, the participants discussed their joint research strategy with the common goal to find a sustainable way of consuming information and communication technology.
Further information: www.ecoinnovateit.de

On the 02.10.2015 research associate from VLBA department Viktor Dmitriyev and guest researcher PhD Zhongkai Li attended BUIS workshop. The workshop was part of the Informatik 2015 conference, which this year took place in Cottbus, Germany. During BUIS workshop, Viktor presented his publication "Big Data Inspired Water Management Platform for Sensor Data" and Zhongkai presented his scientific manuscript entitled "Modeling For Sustainable Product Development Strategies With General Morphological Analysis".

From the 1st of October till the 6th of November 2015 we have the pleasure to have an exchange researcher from the Electra Erasmus Mundus Project. Her name is Meline Ghalechyan and she is from Charentsavan, Republic of Armenia. She works at the State Pedagogical University of Armenia, has a master degree on Information Systems (Branch Oriented) from the State Engineering University of Armenia (SEUA) and currently she is doing her PhD research on Computer Science at the National Politechnical University of Armenia (former SEUA). She will be working at our office with the project “Schaufenster Elektromobilität”. For the exchange her research will focus on activities within Sustainable mobility and Sustainability Customer Relationship Management.

In the frame of his research stay to Oldenburg University (Business Informatics VLBA) Prof. Dr. Manuel Mora (University Aguas Autonoma Aguascalientes, Mexico) gave a presentation entitled:
A MULTI-ATTRIBUTE DECISION-MAKING (MADM) MODEL FOR EVALUATING FREE-LIBRE OPEN SOURCE (FLOSS) TOOLS IN THE DOMAIN OF IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT (ITSM).

Oldenburg University and organized at 01-02 of July 2015 a roadmap workshop with the Syrian Partners. This workshop took place in Beirut, Lebanon with the attendance of 5 colleagues from Aleppo University and 2 from Damascus University. The main aims of this workshop were to draw a roadmap for the project implementation in the Syrian partner universities and especially in Aleppo University, discuss the potential LFM for an extra year in the case the project gets prolonged, present the quality plan and define a co-financing strategy.

As part of her research stay Ola Musta gave her Phd. proposal presentation entitled "Change detection for real-time sensor data stream".

Participants from the chair of Prof. Marx Gómez and the chair of Prof. Thorsten Raabe met for their second time in Osnabrück to discuss the collaborative work on the interdisciplinary project ‘Sustainable Consumption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the Digital Society’. The interdisciplinary team comprises researchers from the University of Osnabrück and the University of Lüneburg and covers a broad spectrum of research backgrounds such as social sciences, information systems, psychology, sustainability management, innovation research and marketing. Together, the participants discussed their joint research strategy and possible overlaps in their upcoming approaches with the common goal to find a sustainable way of consuming information and communication technology.
Further information: www.ecoinnovateit.de

On Friday, 3rd July 2015 Andreas Solsbach successfully completed his disputation on his doctoral thesis "Document Engineering als Ansatz für eine überbetriebliche Nachhaltigkeitsberichterstattung" (engl. “Document Engineering as an inter-organizational approach to sustainability reporting". The examination committee consisted of the chairman Prof. Dr. Michael Sonnenschein, the supervisors Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Jorge Marx Gómez, Prof. Dr. habil. Ralf Isenmann, Prof. Dr. rer. pol. Frank Teuteberg and the examination member Dr. Jörg Bremer. After completion of the disputation the newly crowned "PhD" invited all to a small celebration in the rooms of the VLBA. The department of Business Information Systems / Very Large Business Applications (VLBA) sincerely congratulates.

In the frame of his research stay David Montoya (University of Aguascalientes, Mexico) gave his final presentation entitled "Design and Evaluation of a Security Management Process and its Services - Case study UAA LABDC".

Dr. Zhongkai Li, guest researcher in Department of Informatics and very large business applications (VLBA) will participate the EnviroInfo & ICT4S 2015 held in University of Copenhagen during 7th-9th September, 2015. With the authors as Zhongkai Li, Jorge Marx Gómez, and Alexandra Pehlken, the article named “A systematic review of environmentally conscious product design” has been accepted by ICT4S 2015. Zhongkai Li will attend the conference to lead a discussion about the state-of-the-art review on product eco-design and explore future research directions in sustainable development for eco-friendly products and supporting software systems. Detailed presentation photos and file downloads will be provided after the conference.

Oldenburg University and Vilnius Gediminas Technical University organized a training workshop in VGTU, Vilnius for the Lebanese and Syrian partners. This workshop had been successfully taken place at 02-04 of June 2015. Eight staff members and one student from Lebanon and eleven staff members and three students from Syria had been trained in this workshop. The main two training areas focused on how to write scientific publications and the major issues that have to be taken into consideration in Leadership, presentation and communication skills.

As part of a privately funded exchange David Montoya of the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes (Mexico) will have a one-month research stay at the Department of Business Information Systems (University of Oldenburg).

Valentina Grigoryan held a lecture about her university ( Armenian National Agrarian University, Armenia ) in the department Business Information Systems / Very Large Business Applications (VLBA) as part of a staff exchange in the Erasmus Mundus project Electra.

The 28.04.2015 was a final day of the 1 year journey for the 11 students from project group OliMP (Oldenburger inMemory Planung). The project was focused on an operational planning and optimization in energy domain. In particular, project tried to figure out and predict with higher possible accuracy the rate of energy consumption. One of the main project concerns was an identification of the most suitable data sources and their combinations to be used within the predictive models. The other question that was answered by the project is about most appropriate predictive algorithm(s) to be used with those data sources. The team's approach was first of all to identify the core hypothesis and then try various ideas on top of the core hypothesis. Due to the vast amount of possible variants to be tested (combination of data sources, predictive algorithms and various algorithms' configurations), it was very crucial for the project to use such technology, which will significantly simplify the work and allow to build predictive models on top of the large dataset very fast. For such purpose, the SAP HANA and it's analytical capabilities such as SAP HANA Predictive Analysis Library (PAL) were used. Besides 11 students, who were the main contributors to the project, there were also a supervisors from university and industry. The university's supervisors team Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jorge Marx Gómez, Nils Giesen, Jens Siewert, Viktor Dmitriyev, Dr.Ing. Dirk Peters would like to thank Dr. Joachim Kurzhöfer from AS Inpro GmbH for his outstanding and invaluable support.

On Monday, 27th of April Benjamin Wagner vom Berg successfully completed his disputation on his phd topic “Sustainability Customer Relationship Management (SusCRM) for vendors of sustainable mobility services”. The examination board consisted of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jorge Marx Gómez, Prof. Dr. Frank Köster, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Sauer and Dr. Ingo Stierand. After the disputation the new “Dr.” invited all participants to celebrate in the restaurant “Santorini”. The department of Business Information Systems / Very Large Business Applications (VLBA) sincerely congratulates.

Oldenburg University and Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden organized at 20-21 of April 2015 the MSC.ESE Consortium Workshop to present the overall status of the project development, decide about a necessary extension after getting EACEA approval and determine the sustainability plan and student mobility. Besides that, this meeting was intended to have the fifth follow-up management meeting of the European and target partners to present the results of the implemented activities so far.

A training visit to Tunisia had successfully been taken place from 20th to 26th of March 2015 in parallel with the first Egyptian ESE conference. The presidents and the vice presidents of SU and ACU together with their contact persons attended this conference. Nine Teachers from Germany, Spain, Sweden, Portugal and Tunisia came to Egypt. The purpose of this visit was the training of local teachers at SU and ACU by the teachers who authored the modules.

Picture: SU Visit

Visits to the faculties and laboratories involved in the project and introductions of the local teacher teams and students at SU and ACU Besides the structure of the MSC.ESE programme's structure in Egypt were arranged in this visit as well. Managerial issues related to the implementation of this project were also discussed in this visit.

Picture: ACU Visit

On March 18, 2015 Prof. Dr. Jorge Marx Gómez gave a lecture at the CeBIT 2015 (HP Stage) on the research projects with SAP HANA at the University of Oldenburg (department Business Information Systems VLBA) and then stood for an interview with show-case available.

On the 17.03.2015 the Oldenburg start-up Lowotec won one of the main prizes at the "Gründerwettbewerb – IKT Innovativ" (founder's contest - ICT innovative) of the Federal Ministry of economics. The 30000€ prize was presented to the team consisting of four computer science graduates of the University of Oldenburg by Parliamentary State Secretary Brigitte Zypries. Lowotec is supported by Prof. Dr.-ing. Jorge Marx Gómez.

Under the motto "plan today for the energy of tomorrow" the project group OliMP presented the results of their twelve-month project on this year's CeBIT in Hanover, Germany. The exhibit was part of the joint stand "innovation in Lower Saxony" on which 18 exhibitors from universities, research institutions and enterprises supported by the ministry of science and culture presented their research and the latest developments. The project group is supported by the Department of Business Information Systems / Very Large Business Applications (VLBA) under the direction of Prof. Dr.-ing. Jorge Marx Gómez.

Students present their project to the Lower Saxony Minister for science and culture Dr. Gabriele Heinen-Kljajic.

As part of the DAAD (programs university partnerships and ICT for Africa) funded projects " Environmental Management Information Systems - EMIS Subsahara and Doctoral Education in Environmental Management Information Systems- DEMIS " the annual workshop, as well as the kick-off meeting took place from 26-27 February 2015. Partners are universities in the subsahara-countries Mozambique, Ghana and Tanzania. On the German side, the University of Munich and the company IMBC Berlin are involved. In addition to the establishment of a master's programme in corporate environmental informatics a PhD network "environment and sustainability computer science" will be developed and implemented in addition to the participating universities in the partner countries.

Oldenburg University and Universidad de Alicante organized at 23-24 of February 2015 the MATRE final preparation workshop (D2.2) to present the completed activities and discuss the content and the actions to be made to ensure the success of the LB/SY MATRE centers. Moreover, this preparation workshop had the second project consortium meeting in which UA presented the quality plan. The consortium discussed also all the important aspects to complete the intermediate report by considering any suggestions and improvements to the outputs and outcomes that will be carried out during the funded period of this TEMPUS project.

The sustainability management is an important and strategic component for modern enterprises. Within a year-long reasearch project the Chair of Business Informatics - very large business applications in collaboration with ABAT AG develops and evaluates application-oriented scenarios for integrated sustainability strategy. That includes the transfer of advanced methods and concrete implementations, as well as the implementation of scientific knowledge for developing and implementing a holistic sustainability management in an industrial context. More details can be found on the project website. Contact person for the project are Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jorge Marx Gómez and Dipl.-Inform. Nils Giesen.

The participants of the project ‘Sustainable Consumption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the Digital Society’ came together for the first time in the context of the WI2015 in Osnabrück. The representatives of the interdisciplinary consortium, which consists of the University of Oldenburg as well as the University of Osnabrück and the University of Lüneburg, discussed the possibilities of a change in the consumption patterns of Information and Communication Technologies towards a more sustainable form by integrating all related stakeholders into the innovation and design process of the product. Through multiple discussion rounds, the participants developed concepts for a more sustainable way of consuming ICT in the areas of e-mobility, the workplace of the future and the consumption ICT in private households.
Further Information: www.ecoinnovateit.de

A training visit to Tunisia had been successfully taken place at 02-06 of February 2015. Six Teachers from Germany, Spain, Jordan and Egypt came to Tunisia. The purpose of this visit was the training of local teachers at SF and TU by the teachers who authored the modules.

 

SF Visit

 

Visits to the faculties and laboratories involved in the project and introductions of the local teacher teams and students at SF and TU Besides the structure of the MSC.ESE programme's structure in Tunisia were arranged in this visit as well. Managerial issues related to the implementation of this project were also discussed in this visit.

 

TU Visit

 

As part of a research collaboration and the development of a shared CeBIT event, a meeting between Mr Hubertus Schulz (HP Enterprise Group) and Prof. Dr. Jorge Marx Gómez took place in Munich. They specifically discussed the content of the CeBIT event as well as the participation of HP in a national and an international project.

Participation of Prof. Dr. Jorge Marx Gómez at the Conference "European Soirée on non-financial disclosure" at the Council for sustainable development in the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) with the participation of the European Union and members of the German Bundestag.

MATRE Tempus Project A visit to similar centers at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg and a quality control meeting had been successfully taken place at 19-21 of January 2015. Three Lebanese (2 from MUBS and 1 from LU) and seven Syrian (2 from AIU, 2 from IUST, 2 from DA and 1 from SCB) staff members, 2 staff members from VGTU, 1 staff member from UA and one student representative from MUBS attended this visit. Discussion about training areas required by the Lebanese and Syrian colleagues took place and the consortium agreed upon seven training areas to be conducted by the EU partners. Moreover, visits to Offis Institute for Information Technology, Next Energy and Technologie- und Gründerzentrum Oldenburg (TGO) took place in this visit. That includes several presentations about start-up initiatives in Oldenburg besides presenting the linkage between academia and business. A draft of the quality plan had been presented in this meeting as well as a core for the overall quality plan that will be presented in the next consortium meeting in UA at 23-24.02.2015.

Prof. Dr. Jorge Marx Gómez visited the Harley Davidson branch in Augustfehn as part of the supervision of a master thesis and a possible cooperation. The contact person there was the Managing Director Mr. Börjes.