Semester Update

Dear readers,

thank you for joining us on our tour through past and upcoming events as well as news from our departments and research unit. Enjoy this winter term update from our MCiT & DIBSE Department and hopfully see you soon at MCI.

Stay healthy and all the best!

Your MCiTeam

DEPARTMENT NEWS

New or back in our team

Teresa Spieß

We are very happy to announce the return of Teresa from her maternity leave. On December 1, 2020 Teresa will support our MCiTeam as a lecturer again. Welcome back, dear Teresa!

Suganthi Manoharan

"After completing my Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Communications, I decided to continue my career in software development. I worked on the development of enterprise scale applications in the field of higher education for several years. Now I am very happy to be part of the DiBSE team and to help our enthusiastic students to shape their future in the field of software development."

Susann Kruschel

"After completing my bachelor's degree in business administration, I decided to gain professional experience in the fields of HR and project management. However, I was soon drawn back into the lecture halls and thus also from Hamburg to the Tyrolean Alps. I successfully completed my Master’s Degree in Strategic Management last year at the SOWI here in Innsbruck. I am very happy to be able to apply my practical and theoretical knowledge since June 2020 for the MCiT & DiBSE Department and to be part of such a motivated team."

Linda Meier

"It was clear to me that after completing the language branch of the Ferrari school, I wanted to immerse myself in the professional world and work with exciting people. This is what I am allowed to do in the MCiT & DiBSE team since July 2020. To work in such a motivated and committed environment, to carry out the varied tasks in the office and to accompany students on their way, is really exciting."

Celine Loner

"After five years at the HTL Bau und Design, in the field of graphic and communication design, I am now very happy and motivated to have found my first real job at the MCI. Since August 5, 2020, I have the privilege of supervising the 2020 class of the DiBSE bachelor's program and being there to answer our students' questions and concerns. I find the daily new tasks and varied activities that await me every day particularly exciting!"

Maximilian Samsinger

"In the course of my bachelor and master studies in technical mathematics at the LFU Innsbruck, my interest in the theoretical investigation and practical implementation of artificial neural networks was awakened. The MCI offers me a familiar and innovative environment in which I can share my interests. I am glad that I am now a permanent member of the DiBSE team since March 2020."

New lecturers

In addition to our new employees, we also welcome new lecturers into our team for this semester. In the bachelor course MCiT we were able to win over guest lecturer Andi Knoll, Ö3 and Katharina Zierl, TIROLERIN for the course Teamwork. In the Master's program Sabine Graschitz teaches Financial Management in the 1st semester and Martina Gleißenebner-Teskey takes over the course Leadership & Change Management in the 3rd semester. Also, in the DiBSE program we have some new additions, among others Cathrine Laflamme and Christoph Praschl. Cathrine teaches Current Technology in the 5th semester, Christoph teaches the topic Databases I. Welcome to our team!

Responsibilities of our assistants

Who does what? If you have any questions about online exams and TCExams or Adobe Connect and Sakai, Elisabeth Rabanser and Alexander Monz are available to assist you. Elisabeth also takes care of semester planning, the agendas around AACSB and supports the MCiT Bachelor theses and exams. Alexander is responsible for questions regarding the DiBSE Bachelor theses. Rebecca Agerer and Susann Kruschel take care of the two major topics of communication and international affairs in DiBSE and MCiT. Magdalena Posch is responsible for the admission procedure as well as the MCiT master theses and examinations. Magdalena is also available for questions regarding the examination regulations. The contact details of our assistants can be found under "Academic Departments" on the MCI website.

Events & celebrations

Pascal Schöttle and Matthias Janetschek receive the MCI Associate Professorship

Our department has been enriched by two MCI professors in just a few weeks! In a ceremony held on September 30, 2020 the Associate Professorships were awarded to our lecturers Pascal Schöttle and Matthias Janetschek - both of whom are primarily active in the Digital Business & Software Engineering program. The certificates were presented by our head of department Peter J. Mirski, the head of the academic council Franz Pegger and MCI Rector Andreas Altmann. We congratulate them on these awards. For more insights click here.

70 DiBSE + 66 BMCiT + 32 MMCiT = 168 Freshmen!

With 168 freshmen we started into the new academic year. Our 70 DiBSE students were the first ones on 4 September 2020. For more insights click here.

In the 1st week of October, the 66 MCiT Bachelor and 32 MCiT Master students MCiT for the opening ceremony at the MCI campus. For more insights click here.

The entire DiBSE and MCiTeam welcomes our new students of the year 2020 to MCI!

The somewhat different graduation

The festive graduation ceremony is the official conclusion of an MCI study program and is the highlight of our academic year. Due to current circumstances and official restrictions, this year for the first time in the history of the MCI a creative digital graduation ceremony took place. It was broadcasted over the Internet and together with a live chat function. This enabled our 45 MCiT Bachelor students and 23 MCiT Master students to combine the academic ceremony with their personal celebration and invite friends from all over the world to their digital graduation ceremony. Congratulations to our alumni! For more insights click here.

Our dear colleague Magdalena Posch was also one of the graduates. If you are interested to see how she experienced this special day, you can take a look into this TV report starting from minute 1.

Course projects in the ws 2020

The combination of teaching theoretical content with practical applications is highly valued at MCI. Our master program offers different project courses in the winter semester like e.g.:

Applied Project 2 with Benjamin Faranda, Master MCiT 3rd semester

Lecturer Ben, who lives in Australia, has an exciting challenge in store for our students this semester: Australia is a huge country, there are only a few major cities, the distances are long, and young people with behavioral problems often receive support from appropriate counseling centers very late. For this reason, we want to shorten the time it takes to seek help by offering online counseling. In groups of 4/5 our master students develop prototypes, e.g. an app or a website and present their proposals at the end of January 2021. We are already excited about the ideas and maybe their realization!

Inter-university lecture with our sister university UNO, Master MCiT 3rd semester

The course Human Resource Management in the 3rd semester of our Master’s MCiT stands out with an international touch in two ways. As a lecturer we could win Patricia Meglich from our partner university University of Nebraska in Omaha, short UNO. In addition, our students work together with students from UNO in groups on a joint assignment. In the area of "Training and Development of Employees", for example, differences between Austria and the USA have to be identified. It will be exciting to see how the students also master the challenge of the time difference!

Rankings & scholarships

Great results at the special evaluation on COVID-19 of the CHE Master Survey of business study programs

As part of the CHE Master's student survey of economics and business administration programs, the overall results of which are expected by the end of 2020, additional questions were asked about studying during the corona pandemic and about digital teaching. The respondents rated MCI's handling of the corona pandemic as 1.08 overall (scale from 1 very good to 6 very poor). With regard to the Master MCiT program, the students particularly appreciated the "ability to continue and complete their studies as planned (1.04), the accessibility of central contact persons (1.08) and the opportunity to take examinations (1.09). "Since the restriction of public life in Austria, not a single lecture was canceled. The transition to an online setting was quick and smooth," said one of the respondents.

Universum Career Test 2020

Universum is the global leader in employer branding and talent management. The globally active company with headquarters in Sweden conducted the survey in Austria from November 2019 to April 2020 among 10,249 students. 693 participants in the survey were students at the MCI in Innsbruck and, as has been the case for many years, gave their university top marks. In addition to university satisfaction and career services, MCI also received top marks in the categories study environment, internationalization and location. For more insights click here.

Call for the Rotary Club Scholarship 2021

Since 1988, the Rotary Club Innsbruck has enabled young, highly talented people to receive a scholarship of EUR 5,000. The most important selection criterion is a multifaceted talent that promises above-average success for their own development and for their role in society. Proposals can be made by any professor at an Austrian university. Can you already think of one of our students who could be considered? You can find all information about the application, the selection criteria and the submission deadline in the announcement.

RESEARCH NEWS

Research projects

Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation

The MCiT Department and the Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation have a long-standing and close relationship with each other. The Foundation is best known worldwide for hosting the alternative Nobel Prize for Mathematics and Computer Science. Last year, this long-standing relationship led to the joint research project on the important topic of "Empowering women's careers in computer science & mathematics", which is being implemented in the form of an online community platform.

Tiroler Rohre GmbH

Industry and economy are currently undergoing major changes towards an automated and digitalized world. The challenges for manufacturing companies are manifold and often include the analysis of process data. Tiroler Rohre GmbH was faced with the challenge of carrying out process optimization in the metal casting of its products. The focus was on increasing the efficiency of the process while maintaining the same product quality. For this purpose, methods of process/data flow analysis and simulation were applied. Since November 2019, our two lecturers Christian Ploder and Reinhard Bernsteiner as well as our MCiT Master’s student Jakob Kübelböck worked on this research project and were able to successfully complete it in September 2020. For more insights click here.

Conferences

In the past months, you could find our lecturers at various virtual conferences. Dietmar Kilian moderated the SAP Academic Community Conference DACH 2020 on the topic of "Teaching Digital Skills For The Digital Age". Christian Ploder was also invited to the conference as a speaker.

Stephan Schlögl has organized this year's Conversational User Interfaces Conference 2020 and successfully brought it to a digital stage. Among others, papers on the exciting and seminal topics "Usability & Design" and "Conversational Principles" were presented.

This year, the annual Heidelberg Laureate Forum was also held entirely online due to the COVID-19 restrictions. On the last day of the conference, Peter Mirski and Dietmar Kilian moderated the Scientific Interactions for the alumni from mathematics and computer science. Together with the invited guest speakers they gave helpful tips on possible career paths in industry or academia. In an interview, Peter Mirski and Khari Douglas from the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) talked about the advantages and challenges of digital learning.

Publications

Within our research unit "Digital Transformation", highly interesting papers by our lecturers have again been published, often in collaboration with our students. Here is an overview*:

Markus Thaler, Stephan Schlögl, Aleksander Groth on "Agent vs. Avatar: Comparing Embodied Conversational Agents Concerning Characteristics of the Uncanny Valley", 2020 IEEE International Conference on Human-Machine Systems (ICHMS)

Click here to read the paper.

Silas Barth, Rebecca Weichelt, Stephan Schlögl, Felix Piazolo on "UCD in AAL: Status Quo and Perceived Fit", 2020 HCI International 2020 - Late Breaking Papers: Universal Access and Inclusive Design

Click here to read the paper.

Winners of the ICL2020 Best Paper Award Reinhard Bernsteiner, Christian Ploder, Thomas Dilger, Andreas Probst on "Motivation Students to Acquire Digital Skills", 2020 23rd International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning

For more insights click here.

Natascha Mariacher, Stephan Schlögl, Alexander Monz on "Investigating Perceptions of Social Intelligence in Simulated Human-Chatbot Interactions", 2020 Progress in Artificial Intelligence and Neural Systems

Click here to read the paper.

*excerpt

Support us

In order to keep our community up to date, we are always looking for exciting topics related to everyday student life, which we publish on our study program websites and on our social media channels: MCiT Facebook Page | DiBSE Facebook Page or in the Semesterly. If you are participating in conferences, publishing papers, implementing exciting projects in your courses etc., please send the corresponding information and pictures to our editorial team: Rebecca Agerer & Susann Kruschel.

Thank you very much!