Prof. Dr Ulrike Cress was elected Co-Director of the Tübingen LEAD Graduate School and Research Network on 20 June, together with Prof. Dr Kou Murayama (right) from the Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology. The incumbent Co-Director, Prof. Dr Ulrich Trautwein (left), was re-elected to his post.

The international LEAD network for educational research brings together around 100 scholars from eleven disciplines and more than ten countries. The Leibniz Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM) has been involved in LEAD since its inception in 2012 when it emerged from the Excellence Initiative. ‘We are an important part of the network owing to our research on knowledge processes in a digitised world. The broad and interdisciplinary expertise united in LEAD makes Tübingen one of the leading international centres of empirical education research,’ says IWM Director Cress, who is committed to maximising the synergies among the various actors on site.

On 1 May 2022, Prof. Dr Katharina Scheiter, who previously headed the IWM’s Multiple Representations lab for many years, took up a position at the University of Potsdam. She has been appointed to a professorship funded by the Hasso Plattner Foundation, which also entails the establishment of a centre for digital education in Potsdam.
Katharina Scheiter has played a decisive role in shaping and guiding the IWM’s work since its inception in 2002. In addition to her professorship at the University of Tübingen, which she held since 2009, she successfully carried out numerous DFG-funded projects and was significantly involved in establishing key IWM-related schemes. Acknowledging her longstanding contribution, IWM Director Prof. Dr Ulrike Cress noted that ‘the LEAD Graduate School, the Tübingen Digital Teaching Lab and the Tübingen Centre for Research and Transfer on Digitisation in Teacher Education are all projects that Katharina Scheiter played a significant role in establishing and which will remain important pillars of our institute in the future’. Bidding her farewell, Cress adds ‘I am very grateful for her many years of successful commitment and wish her all the best for her new tasks, which I hope will keep us connected’.
The Multiple Representations lab will continue to operate under the provisional leadership of the IWM Director.

Elke Kümmel did not only successfully complete her dissertation on “Structural Influences of Higher Education on Student Performance”, but she also received an Education Sciences 2020 Best Paper Award for one of her studies conducted as part of her thesis.

Her dissertation examined whether structural influences at universities impact student performance by means of three studies. On one hand, the former member of the Knowledge Construction lab analysed researchers' theoretical perspectives on learning with digital media and, on the other hand, how higher education institutions portray themselves in terms of the arrangement of their research and teaching. Her findings suggest that variables used to determine student learning outcomes in digital learning environments are related to researchers' perspectives. In addition, Elke Kümmel discovered that a university's self-presentation affects student engagement. Consequently, she was able to develop promising approaches on how the structural setup of higher education institutions could be designed to support students' development.

As of 1 April 2022, Dr. Hauke S. Meyerhoff will accept the call to a tenure-track professorship in general and instructional psychology at the University of Erfurt. There he will also be contributing his expertise to the Bachelor programme in Teaching, Learning and Training Psychology and to the Master’s programme in Psychology. He will thus build on topics he has already been involved with at the IWM.

Hauke Meyerhoff has spent a total of twelve years at the IWM, first as a doctoral student and then as a research fellow in the Realistic Depictions Lab.

"United on the issue of polarisation?" – is the title of a debate post by PD Dr. Jürgen Buder (German only) on the blog of the Tübinale. This year’s Tübinale, an annual short film festival in Tübingen, will explore the theme of “Media Convergence & Polarisation” and will, among other things, examine the ways in which polarisation is interesting from a media studies perspective.

In his contribution, Jürgen Buder critically asks if polarisation could also be seen as an indicator of diversity and pluralism. The member of the Perception and Action Lab clarifies that the point is not to trivialise polarisation, but rather to adopt a more differentiated view of the phenomenon in academia. He also explores the extent to which (social) media fuel phenomena such as filter bubbles and echo chambers and points out ways in which polarisation can be mitigated via media and societal platforms.

 The feature was written as part of the blog accompanying the Tübinale. Several experts were asked to share their thoughts and insights in order to approach the topic from different angles. The Tübinale, which is organised by Tübingen's media studies students, highlights a different media-relevant topic every year. More information about the event can be found on the Tübinale website.

The transformation of the working culture was the topic at the digital conference "Corporate Re-Connection" hosted by the Quadriga University Berlin from 16 to 17 March 2022. The event discussed the question of how companies and institutions can, on the one hand, practically implement the flexibility gained through digital working and, on the other hand, continue to operate as efficiently as possible.

Prof. Dr. Kai Sassenberg shared findings from his research at the IWM during the panel discussion on "Leadership 2022: hybrid, empathic, successful?" on the event’s second day. Together with Dr. Matthias Reuter (Siemens), Kay Mantzel (Microsoft Germany), Katharina Winkler (acatech), Luise Ortloff (acatech), Thomas Resch (metafinanz Informationssysteme GmbH), he discussed the corporate culture and future development of leadership roles.

One of the focal points was which challenges arise in the context of New Work and Remote Work: "First of all, the integration of new employees is much more difficult because building up a social network is more complex in dispersed work environments due to fewer informal contacts. In addition, content-related conflicts and thematic overlaps require special attention," says the IWM expert.

‘Back to the Start – Education in the Digital Transformation’ is the slogan under which the 9^th Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Empirische Bildungsforschung (Society for Empirical Educational Research, GEBF) is being held from 9 to 11 March. The virtual event is dedicated to the conflictual interplay between education and digitalisation. It is organised by the University of Bamberg and the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi). Prof. Dr Ulrike Cress kicked off the event with a keynote speech on ‘”Knowledge” in the Digital Age’, in which the IWM director discussed processes of knowledge participation.

"Knowledge is generated in self-organised social communities that decide for themselves what is true. This then also shapes the perspective of their members," Cress explained. This results in a co-evolution in which individual learning and collaborative knowledge construction go hand in hand. According to Cress, this applies to ‘serious’ knowledge communities like Wikipedia as well as to advocates of conspiracy theories. To cope with these many ‘truths’, citizens should learn to scrutinise and categorise knowledge systems: "Education in the digital world does not consist of training people how to use digital tools. We should rather focus on the complex social and cognitive processes that shape the way we deal with a multitude of postulated truths," says the educational researcher. In her view, knowledge of one's own ignorance and trust in epistemic authorities are also important educational goals.

Around 600 national and international educational researchers virtually attended the opening of the event, for which around 600 conference papers were submitted.

At the IWM, scientists pursue a research topic that has hardly been in the focus of science and yet is more relevant than ever: What do "smart speakers" - AI-supported language software – do to our communication and how can any insights be gained into such forms of interaction with machines?

These were precisely the questions discussed in the digital workshop "Human-Machine Communication (HMC)" on 22 February 2022 as part of the Annual Conference of the German Communication Association (DGPuK). Stefanie Klein, Franziska Gaiser, and Prof. Dr. Sonja Utz from the Junior Research Group Social Media in cooperation with Esther Greussing from TU Braunschweig organised the workshop. In addition to a theoretical discussion, the event offered participating scientists the opportunity to interact with AI-supported agents and to identify first-hand methodological and subject-related challenges that this research entails. The aim of the event was to develop possible solutions and implications for the field.

"The workshop was a great experience and we were able to get to know the German HMC community better, which led to exciting discussions and impulses", sums up co-organiser Franziska Gaiser. Feedback from around 20 participants was also consistently positive and confirmed the organisers' intention to organise a follow-up event this year's autumn.

As a research institute that is part of the Leibniz Association, the IWM fully endorses the statement made by the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany and condemns Russia's belligerent attack on Ukraine, which violates international law.

In January 2022, Prof. Dr. Ulrike Cress was elected on the programme committee of the Virtuellen Hochschule Bayern (vhb) for the fourth time in a row. Together with seven professors in managerial positions and high-ranking experts, the IWM Director will advise the executive committee on all questions related to the vhb course programme and quality management for the next four years.

The vhb is a network of 32 universities in Bavaria. Since 2000, it has pursued the idea of funding and supporting the development of digital learning units and their usage on an interuniversity basis. The design of digital teaching/learning concepts is also an important research topic at the IWM which is transferred into practical use by the online platform e-teaching.org. Since 2010, Ulrike Cress has used this expertise to advise the vhb: “For the IWM, the close linkage between research and practice is extremely important. This is why I am happy to continue contributing our scientific findings to design and further develop teaching/learning offers at the vhb,” says the IWM Director.

From 1 March of this year, Dr. Stefanie Jung will coordinate and lead the dual (training-integrated) Bachelor's programme Speech and Language Therapy at Trier University of Applied Science. In doing so, the member of the former Junior Research Group Neuro-cognitive Plasticity will return to her roots as a trained speech therapist. At the same time, she will integrate her successful research at the IWM on acquiring complex linguistic and numerical skills.

Stefanie Jung particularly appreciates the more application-oriented aspects of her new position. "I have always been enthusiastic about therapeutic work, and I am looking forward to focusing on it again. Nevertheless, I will also be able to preserve the link to theoretical research and media-related elements, albeit from a different perspective,” says the junior researcher who was part of the Leibniz-WissenschaftsCampus Tübingen and later worked as a doctoral student and then as a postdoc at the IWM.

Even though it is hard for her to bid farewell to the IWM, Stefanie Jung is looking forward to new challenges: In Trier she will focus on how digitalisation and healthcare provision can be effectively brought together in the therapeutic sciences.

How can museums convey controversial content in an appropriate way? Exhibition curators can now find answers to this question in the new online portal AUSSTELLUNGEN KONTROVERS (English Exhibitions Controversial). The website bundles research findings and practical examples of how controversial scientific topics can be communicated in museums and exhibitions and thus provides guidance for museum practitioners. "Museums are in a state of transformation, as they are increasingly taking an active role in current societal debates," explains Prof. Dr Stephan Schwan, head of the lab Realistic Depictions. The web portal is the outcome of a joint DFG (German Research Foundation) knowledge transfer project between the IWM, the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the Institute for Museum Research of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (IfM) and the Deutsches Museum.

In addition to focus texts on topics such as "Controversies and Participation", "Museums against Filter Bubbles" or "Attention, Provocation and Shock", AUSSTELLUNGEN KONTROVERS also contains a detailed index and bibliography. In the "Practical Examples" section, exhibition designers share tried and tested concepts and illustrate how the featured scientific theories can be put into practice. For this purpose, practitioners from the Deutsches Museum have prepared a set of case studies: The touring exhibition "energie.wenden", for example, showcases some of the ways in which visitors themselves can become active and experience participation. The permanent exhibition "Agriculture and Nutrition", on the other hand, demonstrates how emotionally charged topics such as "slaughter" can be presented in an appropriate way.

In order to ensure its scientific excellence, the portal was evaluated in two stages by the IWM, the TUM and the IfM in close cooperation with museum practitioners. The website will continue to be developed in the future by allowing practitioners to share their own practical examples and experiences via the contact form.

Click here to go to the website (German only).

"I know my looks resemble those of a student intern, but I’ve actually been a psychologist at the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien in Tübingen for a few years now,” Daniel Flemming jokingly says about his youthful appearance at the Göppingen Science Slam last week. The IWM researcher has already presented his research on “laypersons’ comprehension of novel scientific findings with a focus on fragility detection in recipients of popular science texts" throughout Germany in the guise of comedy.

In his presentations, he uses wit and sarcasm to elaborate why some people ignore or even reject scientific findings. "People often react to irritating statements with disbelief and ignorance; they prefer simple solutions," the scientist explains. His research at the IWM confirms this: Recipients become oblivious to fragility through simple, one-sided messages. Optimistic preconceptions result in less fragility being perceived, while pessimistic preconceptions cause people to perceive fragility more clearly.

One possible solution: “We need to do a better job at explaining to the public how science works and how we arrive at our scientific conclusions," Danny Flemming claims. As a science slammer, he sets a good and successful example among others, with his contribution at the 2019 "Slam for Future" in front of 1200 people at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg.

All Leibniz Institutes are advised by a Scientific Advisory Board. The seven members of the IWM’s Advisory Board are appointed by Theresia Bauer, Minister for Science, Research and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg. They are all internationally recognised experts in the institute's field of research. On 1 January, the following four researchers were each appointed for a period of four years:

Prof. Dr. Cordula Artelt, Director of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) in Bamberg

Prof. Dr. Olaf Köller, Director of the Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN) in Kiel

Prof. Dr. Doris Lewalter, Professor of Formal and Informal Learning at the TU Munich

Prof. Dr. Tamara van Gog, Professor of Educational Sciences at Utrecht University (Netherlands)

The seven-member advisory board also includes familiar faces such as Prof. Dr. med. Martin Fischer, Director of the Institute for Medical Education at the LMU University Hospital in Munich, who is serving his current term until the end of this year. Prof. Dr. Vincent Aleven, Director of the Undergraduate Program at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg (USA), and Prof. Dr. Eva Jonas, academic director of the postgraduate university course "Master in Training and Development" at the Salzburg Management Business School, were reappointed for another term of office.

"I am very pleased that we were able to recruit highly distinguished and experienced advisory board members," says IWM Director Prof. Dr. Ulrike Cress. The advisory board members will elect their chairperson at the forthcoming spring meeting. The four new scientists will assume the positions of Prof. Dr. Birgit Spinath, Prof. Dr. Dr. Manfred Prenzel, Prof. Jeroen J. G. van Merriënboer and Prof. Dr. Stefan Stürmer, whose term of office ended at the turn of the year. "I would like to sincerely thank the former members for their expertise and professional input over the past years," says Ulrike Cress.