Blended learning teaching concepts, flipped classrooms, electronic distance examinations, digital examination files with online viewing: all introduced in 2020 – not in 2024 or 2025 – as actually planned. Concepts that should normally have been implemented cautiously after careful consideration are already there at the beginning of this Digital Agenda. Important discussions about strategic issues, long-term budget security, staff allocations, data protection, and information security, on the other hand, had to be postponed. Fortunately, many concerns have been dispelled. Recording 25,000 teaching videos via the video platform Panopto was technically easier than expected, but took a lot of energy and time. Our internet access did not collapse under the load of the video streams as we had feared, but our own Panopto server farm is hardly free of operating costs.
This aspect of the digitisation of universities should not be concealed either: new, permanent financial resources and positions are increasingly needed to be able to operate the status quo of meaningful support for research and teaching. Especially for a university of our size, annual software licences and maintenance costs, for example, as well as hardware procurement for research infrastructure and multimedia equipment for teaching rooms that recurs over several years, add up to large, sometimes huge, amounts of expenditure. This development will continue, and we, like many other universities, will have to find a way to cope.
Over the past five years, the University of Bayreuth has established itself as a pioneer and trailblazer among Bavarian and indeed all German universities. Over the next five years, we can cement this status with more substantial measures, and together take the University to even greater heights.
