The document outlines the vision and objectives of the Open School, which aims to develop a student community platform operated by universities. This would allow students to actively contribute to research, practical activities, and solutions to diverse problems. Case studies show students generating original ideas and willing to participate. Research found the platform can work in practice and students can create high-quality materials. Future research may study student profiles online versus offline or implement the platform in a small class. The Open School project received EU funding for a larger initiative advancing research education across countries. Publications and presentations helped disseminate the Open School vision.

1. The Open School
Nizar Abdelkafi, Michael Bartl, Johann Füller, Christoph Ihl

2. Agenda
• The Current Situation and the Vision
• The Open School Objectives
• What is the Open School good for?
• Case Studies
• Scientific Results and Future Research
• Open School Project: “Small” Funding  BIG Impact
• Publications and Presentations
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3. The Current Situation and the
Vision
The university’s system
• University: • Students:
− Administration − Undergraduates
− Teaching and − Graduates
− PhDs
research staff Offline relationships and basic
− Library online interactions − Study programs
− … −…
The university’s system
• University Subsystem 1 • University Subsystem
(Staff): (Students):
− Administration − Undergraduates
Offline relationships and sophisticated
− Teaching and research online interactions based on the − Graduates
staff technologies supporting open source − PhDs
− Library development, open content generation, and − Study programs
innovation contests
− … 3/13/13 − …
3
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4. The Open School Objectives
To develop a Student community platform, operated by universities
• The students can actively contribute to research and practical
activities in order to develop innovative solutions to diverse
problems.
• The activities published on the platform may be posted by the
university’s administration, teaching and research departments,
industrial companies, general public, or students themselves.
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5. Selected Benefits
Initiator of the
Examples of Problems/Activities Students’ Contribution over the Platform
Task
Students improve the learning resources by creating new material or
Students complain about the lecturer’s slides to
Teaching staff enhancing existing ones; the teaching staff decides on the modifications to be
be abstract or difficult to understand.
adopted.
Students contribute to writing case studies. During trainees, project studies,
Case studies are required for the purpose of Research or
bachelor or master theses, students gather practical experiences and gain
teaching and research. teaching staff
new insights that can serve for the development of case studies.
Software is required to support the automation
Students develop a new software or improve an existing one according to the
of a new methodology developed within a Research staff
open source principles.
research project.
Students contribute with ideas to reduce the length of queues or simulate the
Students are unsatisfied with the long waiting
Canteen’s staff canteen’s food counters and checkouts in order to propose effective
times in the canteen.
strategies.
Students complain about long waiting times
Library staff Students work out ideas in order to reduce the time until getting the book titles.
between ordering and getting library books.
A commercial company looks for new Students develop new ideas how the product may be used in a different way
Industry
applications for its product. than so far.
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6. But…
• …does the idea work in practice?
• Is there any evidence that students will participate in such an
initiative?
• What are the kind of activities students are most interested in?
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7. Case Studies
University of Erlangen­Nuremberg
– Development of business concepts for service innovations based on smart phones,
– In winter semester 2009/2010, 241 submissions from students in the fields of education,
entertainment, and healthcare
RWTH Aachen
– Submission of ideas that aim to improve the university’s life conditions and processes
– Participation of almost 60 students (RWTH 2.0, the digital university!!!)
HHL­Leipzig Graduate School of Management
– Co­creation of management knowledge in close collaboration between academia and
practice,
– Students actively contributed to case writing seminars
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8. Results
• Students are willing to use the platform; they are able to generate
original ideas.
• Open school projects, using voluntary participation and competition
among students can work in the practice.
• The use of grades, as a means to push motivation among students,
can sometimes lead to conflicts.
• Students can contribute to the creation of high quality research and
teaching materials
• The IDEANET platform generates big volumes of data that can be
analyzed to answer diverse research questions related to online
communities
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9. Future Research
• The identification of new problems is, at least, as important as finding
innovative solutions. Thus, why not a contest, in which students
participate to ask questions and find problems.
• Implementation of the open school platform in a small class (30
Students); this is an ideal setting to compare students’ profiles in real
life with their online behavior  The experimental setting at the
university of Leipzig in winter semester 2010/2011 within the context of
an innovation management lecture.
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10. Open School Project:
“Small” Funding  BIG Impact
• Looking for the Big Impact: The open school project gave the idea to submit a proposal to apply for
an European project
• Project: PARENIS – Development and Implementation of a Program Advancing Research Education
and Exploitation for the Support of National Innovation Systems
• EU­Program: TEMPUS
• Consortium: 12 Partners from 7 countries (Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, France, Tunisia and Morocco)
• Project Contents: Introduction of lectures on research methods in Tunisia and Morocco, research
stays for PhD students, Initiation of innovation labs with industry, and Implementation of the Open
School Platform, as a method to facilitate innovation and technology transfer.
• Project duration: 3 years
• Submission: March 2010; Acceptance for funding: July 2010
• Project volume: € 972.052,73
• Tempus Grant: € 869.111,73
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11. Publications, Presentations and Reports:
• Presentation slides and video record of the Presentation “Open Source Innovation and
Open School” during the Meeting of the Peter­Pribilla­foundation on 13. April 2010 in
Tunis
• Presentation in the workshop “Service Innovation & Open Collective Work” INFORMATIK
2010 | Service Science – Neue Perspektiven für die Informatik 40. Jahrestagung der
Gesellschaft für Informatik „The Open School Vision – For More Openess at Universities“
• Protocol of the project meeting on 28.05.2010 at HYVE AG in Munich
• Abdelkafi, Nizar / Bartl, Michael / Füller, Johann / Ihl, Christoph / Rieger, Markus (2010):
The Open School Vision – For More Openess at Universities, in Klaus­Peter Fähnrich
and Bogdan Franczyk (Ed.): Proceedings of Informatik 2010 : Service Science – Neue
Perspektiven für die Informatik, Band 1, pp. 949­955.
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