In the winter semester 2022/23, THWS offered the core elective module "Green IT – sustainability in the industry" in cooperation with a Finnish and a Ukrainian higher education institution. In the virtual cooperation project, students had the opportunity to develop intercultural competences. The project has model character for internationally connected teaching.
The internet consumes a vast amount of energy: A simple e-mail, for example, already causes emissions of ten grams of carbon dioxide. That is the equivalent of the climate balance of a plastic bag. The more social awareness climate change raises, the more awareness is also given to the enormous energy consumption of information and communication systems. With the module "Green IT", the THWS Faculty of Computer Science and Business Information Systems educates students on environmentally conscious use of hard- and software. As an integral component of the offer "Mobility Goes Virtual", the lectures are held in cooperation with the Ukrainian National Technical University Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute and Finnish LAB University of Applied Sciences.
The idea arose during the corona pandemic
Already at the start of the pandemic, Franziska Königer, project manager of "Mobility Goes Virtual", had the impulse to establish a virtual exchange across universities. The basic idea: Create virtual mobility of students and lecturers and promote international exchange. "The idea was implemented really quickly back then", Königer reports. Already in the winter semester 2020/21, "Mobility Goes Virtual" started its first round. In cooperation with a Romanian partner university, the students tested new technologies for the realisation of telepresence. The use of double robots, VR devices and 360-degree cameras aimed to create as natural an encounter as possible in the virtual space.
Current topics: environmentally friendly cloud uploads
With positive feedback from the first round, and funding by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) for the second round, the module "Green IT" followed in the winter semester 2022/23. In the form of a virtual block course, students from the three countries meet and receive weekly input by the lecturers of the participating higher education institutions. A total of 25 students are participating and deal with specific project tasks in intercultural working groups.
In the focus, there is always the question of potentials for energy saving in the IT sector because the energy consumption is constantly increasing due to the digital transformation. The spread of the Internet makes for the widespread application of blockchain solutions or the use of streaming services. According to the Borderstep Institute, German data centres used about 16 billion kilowatt hours in 2020. In 2010, this value still amounted to about ten billion. "No one takes into account what one Google search actually costs", Königer highlights the problem. The energy consumed by 20 Google searches would amount to that of an energy saving lamp in one hour. The module "Green IT" is supposed to raise initial awareness for the topic.
What a specific task could look like, is shown by Erik Iakhno's team. The group around the THWS e-commerce student is concerned with a more environmentally friendly solution for cloud uploads. "Currently, cloud providers use a lot of energy for the users' file uploads", Iakhno says. The team is working on a holistic solution. Already while creating one's own solution, the goal was to keep all environmental factors as small as possible, the 25-year old explains. "The cloud technology offers various starting points. The chosen encryption or the place where the data is stored are important topics to us that we tackle", the Bachelor's student explains.
Blended mobility as a networking platform
The voluntary core elective module "Green IT" connects a current research question and a new mobility concept in the form of blended mobility. This format supplements solely digital teaching with personal exchange of the students, usually at the beginning and at the end of a study project.
The 11-week online block course is followed by the Mobility Week in the middle of December, in which all students meet in Würzburg. In that week, the groups present their project results. They also have the chance to get to know each other. "Especially if you are interested in working abroad at some stage, the Mobility Week offers an excellent chance for networking," Erik Iakhno explains. Additionally, one would further develop one's competences in international project management and automatically improve one's English, the students says. Students could thus gain lots of international experience without spending a whole semester abroad.
Franziska Königer sees a general potential for higher education institutions in this kind of teaching: "Once the processes have established, it is a resource-effective and inclusive form of teaching. This offers a broad mass of students the chance to gain international experience." Due to the involvement of several higher education institutions, a single higher education institution has to invest a lot of time for initial coordination and planning. In addition to the alignment of contents, the higher education institutions also have to determine a timeframe. This gets more complicated if there are time differences or differing semester schedules.
Ukrainian higher education institution involved
The module "Green IT" was supposed to already start in the summer semester of 2022. But due to the Russian attack on Ukraine, the start had to be postponed. The Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute was involved in the planning from the beginning. Charkiw lies in the East of Ukraine and has been particularly involved in battle from the beginning of the war. "The situation over there is unimaginable for us. However, we managed to stay in contact with our partners this whole time.", Franziska Königer describes the situation. Meanwhile, the higher education institution has come to terms with the sad situation. A majority of the lectures is taking place virtually at the moment as many students and lecturers have fled the city, and regular teaching is not possible under the current circumstances. But as project manager, Königer notes: "so far, the realisation of the event has been successful. The Ukrainian students and lecturers are highly motivated and have not missed a single event so far." The participants are thus even more excited to meet in Germany in Mid-December.
For THWS, the module "Green IT" is an essential building block for the international university work. Linking current problems with international exchange could prove a viable model for the future for higher education institutions. In particular, the blended mobility format could unite "the best of both worlds" due to the interlocking of in-person and online lectures, Franziska Königer concludes.