The University of Münster has been recognized by the Celonis Academic Alliance as an Academic Center of Excellence in Process Mining and Process Intelligence for the academic year 2024/25, alongside other outstanding institutions.

The selected universities represent the highest standards of innovation in Process Mining and Process Intelligence in the academic world.

This distinction is a testament to the dedication and hard work of Prof. Jan vom Brocke and his team at the Chair of Information Systems and Business Process Management.

At the beginning of October, six students from the Information Systems master's degree programme set off to Rietheim-Weilheim for the kick-off of the seminar with the Marquardt Group as part of the project seminar ‘Digital Product Innovation through Design Thinking’, supervised by Dr. Thomas Haskamp (Chair of Information Systems and Business Process Management of Prof. Dr Jan vom Brocke). With over 10,000 employees, the Marquardt Group is a mechatronic system supplier that offers solutions to make mobility and products smarter, safer and more sustainable.

Shareholder Annabelle Marquardt personally welcomed the group, and during the first dinner, the students had the opportunity to learn more about the company and its mission

After a brief product introduction the next morning, the students moved straight into the challenges, where the respective technical contact persons were available to answer questions. Within the seminar, the students will develop new digital products in a B2C context that leverage existing Marquardt technology, applying the Design Thinking methodology.

We look forward to the progress of the project and sincerely thank the Marquardt Group for their hospitality and pleasant collaboration. We are excited to see the results that will be developed during the challenge.

Sustainability and data are closely linked and form the foundation of today's endeavours for a more sustainable future. This is precisely why the first conference on sustainability and data took place last September, allowing participants to join in virtually via Zoom.

Building on this, the conference hosts Lea Püchel (University of Münster) and Cancan Wang (IT University of Copenhagen) organized a discussion paper titled ‘On the Pivotal Role of Data in Sustainability Transformations - Challenges and Opportunites’. It adresses the role of data as catalysts as well as performative and socio-technical function.

They were actively supported in this endeavour: Karin Buhmann (Copenhagen Business School) emphasises the importance of aligning regulatory data requirements with sustainability goals. Furthermore, Tobias Brandt (University of Münster) discusses how sustainability reporting can drive improved data management. Jan vom Brocke (University of Münster) presents the potential of process science for analysing sustainability data. Elizabeth A. Teracino (University of Lausanne) and Christine Legner (University of Lausanne) emphasise the need for reliable, proactive data sourcing. Felizia von Schweinitz (Universität Hamburg) and Laura Marie Edinger-Schons (Universität Hamburg) assess the challenges of impact assessment and finally, practitioner Thomas Daniel Mardahl reflects on the importance of integrating environmental and financial reporting.

These discussions are more relevant than ever before, as the complexities of digitalisation impact both companies and individuals. The outstanding achievement was published in the Business & Information Systems Engineering Journal.

Links to this news:

The full discussion is available here.

The MOTO project, which originated from the project seminar "Development of a coordination app for open all-day care at Altenberge elementary school “, has started. The project seminar of the Chair of Digital Innovation and the Public Sector of Prof. Tobias Brandt was conducted during the Winter Semester 2023/24.

The seminar’s goal was for students to develop software that can digitally manage the supervision of over 400 children at the open all-day school in Altenberge. In addition to supervision, the software aims to support teaching staff in areas such as the development and safety of the children.

Working in collaboration with the Altenberge community and the OGS-Altenberge, our dedicated students developed an initial proof of concept to digitally coordinate open all-day services at OGS-Altenberge.

Based on this initial work, the chair secured funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the DATIpilot funding program, resulting in a grant of €150,000 to further develop the software! The projects’ overall goal is to create a practical, open-source product that can be shared with other municipalities and OGS facilities, making a positive impact across the community.

As part of this initiative, three outstanding students, Christian Kamann, Florian Lüttgenau and Yannick Wegner from the seminar have joined the Chair of Digital Innovation and the Public Sector as student assistants, funded by this grant, and will continue to develop the project. Additionally, the chair is exploring paths to transition this innovative product into a startup once the funding program concludes, demonstrating the entrepreneurial spirit of our department and a commitment to sustainable solutions.

Last week, the seventh Legal and Administrative Informatics Conference (RVI 2024), the INFORMATIK Festival and the eGov-Campus Workshop took place in Wiesbaden and Speyer.

The aim of the joint conference on legal and administrative informatics of the Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. is to promote the dialogue between research and practice and to substantially advance the digital transformation of the government and administration through scientifically grounded insights. The INFORMATIK Festival, titled ‘Lock-in or log out? Wie digitale Souveränität gelingt’, focused on digital sovereignty and explored what role informatics can play in strengthening it.

Three members of the department attended the events and partially presented their papers:

Michael Koddebusch presented a paper at the workshop ‘IT-Kompetenzen für die digitale Verwaltung der Zukunft“, which took place as part of the INFORMATIK Festival: Michael Koddebusch, Paul Brützke, Jörg Becker: „GovLearn: A Digital Tool to Empower Public Servants in their Search for Digital Government Competence Education“.

David Nowak presented a paper at the RVI24, which took place as a co-located conference alongside INFORMATIK: David Nowak: „Capturing trust in public service encounters“.

Dr. Michael Räckers was active in the organizing committees of both the IT Competencies Workshop and the RVI, and was primarily responsible for organizing RVI 2024.

The conference was followed by an excursion to DUV Speyer on Friday, where the participants discussed the eGov campus and its current and future direction.