René Vossen

Network Management for Clusters of Excellence - A Balanced-Scorecard Approach as a Performance Measurement Tool

Supplementary Cluster Activities constitute an important organisational part within the structure of the German Cluster of Excellence “Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass” at RWTH Aachen University, because they focus on the entire clusters efficient networking process and successful strategic cluster development. As research teams from different scientific fields collaborate, the strategic management of interdisciplinary processes becomes necessary to enhance scientific cooperation. Therefore, amongst other measures of cluster development, a Balanced-Scorecard-Approach is implemented to measure the performance of the entire Cluster of Excellence. With the annual implementation of the Balanced-Scorecard-Approach, crucial key performance indicators have been collected, compared and analysed for the strategic management of the Cluster of Excellence, to facilitate innovation activities through adequate measures.

Preparing for Industry 4.0 – Collaborative Virtual Learning Environments in Engineering Education

In consideration of future employment domains, engineering students should be prepared to meet the demands of society 4.0 and industry 4.0 – resulting from a fourth industrial revolution. Based on the technological concept of cyber-physical systems and the internet of things, it facilitates – among others - the vision of the smart factory. The vision of “industry 4.0” is characterized by highly individualized and at the same time cross-linked production processes. Physical reality and virtuality increasingly melt together and international teams collaborate across the globe within immersive virtual environments. In the context of the development from purely document based management systems to complex virtual learning environments (VLEs), a shift towards more interactive and collaborative components within higher educational e-learning can be noticed, but is still far from being called the state of the art. As a result, engineering education is faced with a large potential field of research, which ranges from the technical development and didactical conception of new VLEs to the investigation of students’ acceptance or the proof of concept of the VLEs in terms of learning efficiency. This paper presents two corresponding qualitative studies: In a series of focus groups, it was investigated which kinds of VLEs students prefer in a higher education context. Building upon the results of the focus groups, a collaborative VLE was created within the open world game Minecraft. First screenings of the video material of the study indicate a connection between communicational behavior and successful collaborative problem solving in virtual environments.

Making Scientific Performance Measurable - Experiences From a German Cluster of Excellence

New organizational forms of highly complex and interdisciplinary cooperation like clusters of excellence constitute a new challenge in terms of cluster management and controlling. With regard to the requirements for adequate means of operationalization and evaluation, conventional performance measurement approaches and indicators are not sufficient, because they focus mostly on monetary aspects. Within the cluster of excellence “Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass” a performance measurement approach is implemented, focusing on quantitative as well as qualitative performance indicators. The approach bases on a Balanced Scorecard that is specified to the needs of interdisciplinary research cooperation. A mean of making various performance indicators measurable thus depicts a yearly survey among all hierarchical levels of cluster members to reflect the progress of the scientific output. The results are used as a basis of decision-making for the cluster management board. With regard to this, an operationalization and evaluation of performance indicators supports a continuous improvement process within the entire interdisciplinary cooperation. A further development of the measurement approach considers an integration of concepts like benchmarking and intellectual capital reporting to allow a more holistic form of scientific performance measurement.

Knowledge engineering in interdisciplinary research clusters

This paper proposes an innovative knowledge engineering approach for interdisciplinary research clusters. In science, different competences, knowledge, scientific experience and cultures converge. To cope with this challenge it is necessary to combine several dimensions of human, organization and technology within a holistic knowledge engineering approach. Cooperation structures have to be adapted accordingly. The authors present prototypes of an application oriented research to promote interdisciplinary knowledge production.

On-professional competences in engineering education for XL-Classes

Far reaching changes in university higher education have taken place in the last ten years. Different factors, e.g. necessity of on-professional competences in engineering education, rising or vast student numbers and new technical possibilities, have influenced the academic teaching and learning process. Therefore interdependence between requirements and didactical-educational possibilities is given. Because of changed circumstances an adaption of teaching methods and concepts is required. At the same time Bologna arrogates students to be placed in the centre of the teaching and learning process and claims on-professional competences for todays students. Especially for XL-Classes this is a specific challenge. One of the questions ensuing is how to increase learning success by the use of specific didactical methods? With a research approach connecting different proven didactical concepts and considering the previously shown conditions, the concept of the lecture “communication and organizational development” (KOE) at RWTH Aachen University has been redesigned. This lecture, organized by the Institute Cluster IMA/ZLW & IfU at RWTH Aachen University, is mainly frequented by up to nearly 1.300 students of the faculty of mechanical engineering and inherent part of the bachelor-curriculum. The following practical example prospects the multi-angulation of didactical concepts and shows up innovative educational teaching.

Fostering interdisciplinary integration in engineering management

Research in the challenging field of industrial engineering and engineering management often needs the expertise from more than one discipline. Various disciplinary competences have to be combined to answer research questions and to solve specific (engineering) problems at the interfaces of different professional disciplines. The disciplines being part of the research and problem solving process have to be consequently integrated to form an efficiently performing interdisciplinary consortium. Current research states that this interdisciplinary integration process has to include various dimensions. This paper introduces three sets of interdisciplinary integration methods. Together they cover all of the dimensions explained before and lead to an enhanced interdisciplinary integration. Having just implemented a set of integration methods, measurement methods are adjusted to evaluate and optimize them continually.

Creating an E-Learning recommender system supporting teachers of engineering disciplines

Numerous reviews and studies have shown that Learning Management Systems at university level often are lacking from a number of characteristics such as the support of various didactical approaches, the possibility to consider different specifics of engineering disciplines or a lecturer friendly interface. In this paper, a new recommender system is proposed for teaching staff of engineering disciplines; the novelty of the recommender system is that criteria used by the system are based on standards for engineering education in conjunction with the framework for pedagogical evaluation of Virtual Learning Environments. The suitability assessment scenario being suggested identifies the various needs of teaching staff member with regards to his/her course, teaching methods and also suggests tools that are necessary to increase functionality.

Chances and risks of using clicker software in XL engineering classes - From theory to practice

Teaching and learning in XL-classes is a huge challenge to both lecturers as well as students. While lecturers face the difficulty of speaking to a mostly loud and very heterogenic audience, students often lack the opportunity of being an active participant in class. To counteract these difficulties and give the opportunity of immediate feedback, an audience response system has been introduced in the class of information technology in mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University.

Fuzzy Logic Approach for Sustainability Assessment Based on the Integrative Sustainability Triangle

The energy revolutions goal is to transform the current energy system into a sustainable system based on renewable energy technologies (RET). Even though RET are generally acknowledged as low-emission technologies with positive connotations, there are also negative impacts on ecological, economic and social environments throughout their life cycle. In order to support decision makers in building a sustainable energy system, comprehensive and easily understandable sustainability assessment-tools are required. Current approaches based on methods like Life Cycle Assessment or Multi-Criteria-Decision-Analysis have weaknesses in terms of comprehensiveness, processing of uncertainty and subjectivity, and visualization of results. In this paper, the holistic Fuzzy Logic Approach for Sustainability Assessment Based on the Integrative Sustainability Triangle (Fuzzy-IST) is proposed in order to resolve these weaknesses. Quantitative and qualitative Basic Sustainability Indicators of all sustainability dimensions and life cycle stages are hierarchically processed in a multi-stage fuzzy system. This results in seven crisp Sustainability Dimension Indices and a General Sustainability Index. The crisp values are then visualized in a color-coded Integrative Sustainability Triangle to provide an easy and intuitive interpretation of the results. This allows for the identification of deficits in all dimensions and the deduction of fields of action to improve the overall sustainability of RET.

Herausforderungen kooperativen Lernens und Arbeitens im Web 2.0

Hochschuldidaktische E-Learning-Angebote werden zunehmend mit interaktiven Web 2.0-Komponenten kombiniert. Aus dem ,,Web 2.0“ wird ein ,,E-Learning 2.0“ (vgl. Downes, S.: E-Learning 2.0. E-Learn Maga-zine – Education and Technology in Perspective, Oktober 2005. Online unter http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=1104968). Der vielfaltige Einsatz und die Gestaltungsmoglichkeiten dieser Medien bringen fur Lehrende und Lernende neue Erfahrungen mit sich, die Gegenstands des Workshops ,,Herausforderungen kooperativen Lernens und Arbeitens im Web 2.0“ im Rahmen der TeachING-LearnING.EU Tagung waren. Die Teilnehmender, grostenteils Dozenten mit mehrjahriger Lehrerfahrung, berichteten uber ihre Erlebnisse mit Web 2.0-Anwendungen in der Lehre und bezogen dabei die Perspektive ihrer Studierenden mit ein. Aus diesen Erfahrungswerten heraus wurden fordernde und hemmende Faktoren fur mediengestutztes gemeinschaftliches Lernen identifiziert. In der Diskussion wurde deutlich, dass an eine mediengestutzte Lehre im ingenieurwissenschaftlichen Bereich besondere Anspruche gestellt werden, die es kunftig zu berucksichtigen gilt.