Peer-to-Peer strategy consulting of higher education within the digital age at the University of Göttingen

At a closing event on January 3rd 2018 there will be a discussion with all participants of the peer-to-peer strategy consulting about the advising report of the „Critical Friend“ and their deduced arrangements for the advancement of the digital student and academic services at our university. Due to the German Forum for Higher Education in the Digital Age (HFD) the profitable peer-to-peer strategy consulting at the University of Göttingen gets and official ending.
Within a competitive procedure in June 2017 the University of Göttingen got chosen by the HFD out of 56 applicants to be one of six universities for the first lap of the peer-to-peer consulting. The consulting is directed to the university head for strategy formation at the higher education during the digital age.
As a basis for the discussion with peers in February 2018 there had been three essential goals for digitalization at science and they got included to the ongoing discussion about the outline of science:

• All graduates can acquire digital competences for studies, research, occupation and social participation that are important to them.


• Digitalization is the catalyst for research-oriented learning, equal opportunities, the development of transcultural competences, downsizing of barriers as well as interdisciplinarity of science.


• The potential of digital media, methods and tools is used due to the whole universities wideness and is oriented on the corresponding culture of science.

On an intensive two-day workshop in Göttingen in February 2018 extern critical friends discuss accompanied by employees of the association and the CHE with approximately 50 representatives of the University of Göttingen. The experts of the University of Göttingen came from the circle of lecturers, students, dean of studies as well as service and project workers of different facilities.
The two workshop days got structured by thematic blocks:

• Strategic meaning and goals of the digitalization for student and academic services from the viewpoint of the University head as well as the classification of the global strategy of the University
• Example: internationalization for locally students
• Example: Digitalization of small subjects
• Anchor Competences on new research methods with science
• Concepts for interdisciplinary development of digital competences with heterogenous starting position
• Cross departmental questions for curricular development, appeal/mobilization, support, communication and strategic process


The workshop got prepared by university intern workshops about chances and challenges of the digital student and academic services, interviews with lecturers and a 30 sided self-evaluation report.

With the discussion of the recommendation report written by the critical friends the advisor process gets now transferred to anchor digitalization at the University of Göttingen together with internationalization and diversity information for promotion of the research orientation of science.


Actually there is a second lap of the peer-to-peer-consulting with six other universities in progress.
An application for the third lap of the peer-to-peer-consulting of the HFD is possible by January 2019.

https://hochschulforumdigitalisierung.de/de/strategien-f%C3%BCr-hochschulbildung-im-digitalen-zeitalter