New momentum in e-learning: 

With a new version and optimised interface

Just in time for the start of the 2024 summer semester, the eLearning system has launched a new version with a revised interface. This improves the display of the site, especially on mobile operating systems. Many functions of the new interface, such as quick course access in the navigation bar, were largely supported and coordinated by the ‘Moodle an Hochschulen’ association, of which the University of Bayreuth is a founding member. In addition to the new interface, the update of the underlying

Moodle software brings with it a variety of new functions, a selection of which we would like to present to you:

1. improved course navigation

The newly integrated, collapsible navigation area on the left-hand side of the course offers improved navigation, especially in extensive courses, and enables users to access the desired course content quickly and specifically. In addition, the block area on the right-hand side of the screen can also be collapsed in the standard layout to give the course content more space. Furthermore, the access and completion requirements for activities are presented to participants directly and clearly.

2. improvements to the editing mode

When editing courses, lecturers and course tutors have numerous additional functions at their disposal that make it easier for them to create, edit and structure courses. These include, among others:

•  The availability of activities for students can be adjusted directly on the course page
  
•  Moving course content in the navigation bar
  
• ‘Bulk actions’ to directly duplicate, move, delete and adjust the availability of activities
  

3. new text editor TinyMCE

As the previous text editor Atto has not been actively developed for some time and its support for mobile operating systems was felt to be inadequate, it was time to replace it with a more modern editor.

4. collection of questions

As part of versions 4.0 to 4.3 of Moodle, extensive innovations were implemented in the question collection. This collection forms the backbone of testing in Moodle by providing questions that can then be used in tests and courses.

The updated question collection offers several improvements, including the ability to version questions, simplified sorting and the ability to check directly in the collection in which tests and in which version the questions are used. These changes lay the technical foundation for further improvements, the long-term goal of which is to enable the use of questions across multiple courses. For example, a department could generate the tests for all its courses from a central course.

The project to improve the question collection was made possible by financial support from universities (including the Open University, ETH Zurich, BFH Bern, TU Berlin, Hochschule Hannover, RWTH Aachen, etc.)  and Moodle at universities.

Nikolai Jahreis

Your contact for elearning & moodle

elearning@uni-bayreuth.de

A safe start to the semester

In line with the ‘ITS Knowledge’ series, ITS also offers information events for students at irregular intervals. On 18 April 2024, under the motto ‘A secure start to the semester’, all students were invited to join forces with the Bayreuth Criminal Investigation Department K11 (Cybercrime) to find out first-hand about working securely on their computers, as their private computers are one of the most important work tools for students today.

The University of Bayreuth's Information Security Officer, Ralf Stöber, explained the most important rules

for working securely with the University of Bayreuth's services. He pointed out that emails are the main route of attack for cyber criminals and strongly recommended training on email security on the video server at the University of Bayreuth: Email security SS 2021 english (uni-bayreuth.de)

First Chief Detective Inspector Markus Hahn and Chief Detective Inspector Theresa Schödel from K11 presented the latest scams used by cyber criminals and gave lots of tips on how to recognise them and protect yourself against them. Topics included fake bank employees, identity theft on the internet and money laundering.

AI use at the University of Bayreuth

The University of Bayreuth provides access to ChatGPT and DALL-E via the existing Microsoft 365 A3 campus licence. More detailed information can be found on the pages of the IT Service Centre.

Focus on AI and digitalisation:

At the DC24 in Magdeburg

DC24, the second ‘Digital Campus - University Conference’, which took place in Magdeburg from 21.03. to 22.03.2024, highlighted the variety of opportunities, challenges and best practices in the field of university digitalisation. In workshops and presentations, the participating universities shared their knowledge and experiences in order to shape future-oriented educational landscapes.

In his keynote speech, Johannes Sommer, CEO of Retresco GmbH, put forward the core thesis that AI is massively changing the digital. However, it is impossible to predict exactly what this change will look like in a few years' time. It was a similar story when the iPhone was launched: nobody could have guessed that it would not only revolutionise the mobile Internet, but would even make it possible to buy milk in the supermarket.

In his presentation ‘Developing digitalisation & AI skills and anchoring them (extra-)curricularly’, Prof. Dr Torsten Eymann, CIO of the University of Bayreuth, addressed the influence of AI on the university world. He emphasised that AI skills should play an important role in almost all degree programmes. The topic is not just limited to new degree programmes that explicitly have AI in their name. AI should also find its way into traditional Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes such as business studies, law, humanities and STEM subjects. The challenge is to integrate AI appropriately without overloading the already condensed teaching modules of Bachelor's degrees. One possible solution is interdisciplinary modules in the style of a Studium Generale for the subject area of AI. In addition, supplementary or postgraduate study programmes with corresponding qualification certificates could offer real added value.

^{Prof. Dr Torsten Eymann, CIO of the University of Bayreuth, together with Prof. Dr Susanne Tittlbach, Vice President for Digitalisation, Innovation and Sustainability, and Dr Hans-Jörg Bauer, present the Digital Campus Award, which the University of Bayreuth received from UniNow GmbH.}

The Digital Campus Award from UniNow GmbH was presented for the first time at the conference. The basis for this award was an extensive survey of students at German universities and colleges.

UniNow's Digital Campus Index provides information on student satisfaction with digitalisation at their university. It assesses the digital quality of lectures, facilities, administration and other areas. The ranking was based on a star rating in the survey in the UniNow campus apps. A total of 12,715 students used the app's survey function to rate the digitalisation at their university or college. The University of Bayreuth took first place among the universities and a very good eighth place in the overall ranking. This recognition motivates the University of Bayreuth to continue to consistently drive forward digitalisation, as Prof. Dr Susanne Tittlbach, Vice President for Digitalisation, Innovation and Sustainability, emphasises.

Workshops & knowledge test:

Information Security Week in the summer semester

Our Information Security Week will take place again from 3 to 7 June 2024. New this summer semester are our workshops on ‘Secure working in everyday life’ as well as video training on other security topics and a knowledge test e-learning system Moodle.

From 3 July, we will also be offering all members of the University of Bayreuth compact video training courses via Moodle, which will of course also be available after the Information Security Week. In Moodle you will find additional information on the topics as well as our exciting knowledge test, with which you can test your knowledge of information security yourself. You will receive the link to these video training courses via a separate newsflash. As usual, all content is available in both German and English.

This year, the Information Security Officer, Ralf Stöber, will inform you about the following topics: The current attack methods used by cyber criminals and how you can best protect yourself against them. In addition, information on the security of PDF files and the correct behaviour in an emergency if your computer is affected by a cyber attack.

You can register for these workshops via the Elearning system: https://elearning.uni-bayreuth.de/course/view.php?id=18885

Annual report 2023

The ITS Annual Report 2023 has been finalised. You can view it online: L

Asterisk and the Bavarian Agent - a satire for programmers

Since 1 April, the world of program code writers has been mourning the loss of Asterisk. No, this is not a non-binary Gaul, but the special character that has caused so much resentment among the chief of the Bavarian tribe that it is to be eradicated from official usage forever. Yet this little asterisk has provided us programmers with valuable services for many years. For example, as a multiplication operator. In many programming languages, notation with asterisks is common practice, for example:

Result = 7 * 6 # $Result is 42.

In the high-level languages C and C++, the asterisk is used to point to the value to which a pointer points:

int number = 42;
int *pointer = &number; // Pointer to the variable ‘number’
int value = *pointer; // Value to which ‘pointer’ points (42)

If that was too nerdy for you: 42 is known to be the answer to all questions since Douglas Adams' novel “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”. Incidentally, 42 is also the decimal ASCII code of the gender asterisk. So much correspondence with the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything else can't really be a coincidence. At most, an AI-capable supercomputer like Deep Thought could come up with something like this.

In the IT supreme discipline, regular expressions, the asterisk is also used as a wildcard or placeholder for any character. *.txt matches all files with the extension .txt. The expression matches unix paths such as /usr/*/bin and /usr/local/bin or /usr/sbin/bin.

The character string .* is even one of the most tolerant placeholders of all. It finds 0 or more occurrences of any character. But tolerance is probably not in demand in politically charged times, which is why the gender star is unfortunately in decline.

But even if the german expression for diversity (Vielfalt) seems to be just the plural of simplicity (Einfalt) for some people working in politics, the little gender star in many programming languages shows us that they have always been inclusive. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of politics in Bavaria, at least not at the moment.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

CMS basic training (classroom training)

• Wed 12.06. form  9:00 – 11:00 o´clock
  
• Mo 15.07. form  9:00 – 11:00 o´clock
  

Registration via the e-learning system. The number of participants is limited: www.its.uni-bayreuth.de/cms-schulung

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Published by:
IT Service Centre
University of Bayreuth
Universitätsstraße 30
95447 Bayreuth

Managing editor: Oliver Gschwender
Authors: Nadja Bursian, Oliver Gschwender, Ralf Stöber, Nikolai Jahreis
Photos: Dominik Schramm, Adobe Stock