How does the degree programme work?
The Digital Society degree programme is divided into seven semesters. In the first two years of the programme, students learn the basics. Equipped with this knowledge, a practical phase is planned in the fifth semester. This allows students to develop individual specialisations and consolidate what they have learned in their day-to-day work. The final year then begins. This begins with a project, which students work on in small teams over the course of a semester. In addition, six compulsory elective modules are planned to allow students to further develop their individual specialisations.
Prof Müller, head of the Digital Society degree programme, explains the course in more detail in the following YouTube video (in german):
The 5 pillars of the digital society
Basics of Digitisation
The aspects that make digital technologies work are covered here. The focus is on conveying a basic understanding. The aim is to know how information technology works, which example systems exist and how development projects are planned and implemented.
Humans and Digitisation
In this pillar, special attention is paid to how people work with digital technologies. In the first three semesters students are taught the psychological basics of media use. This knowledge is used to study human-computer interaction in the fourth semester.
Socioinformatics
In the field of socioinformatics, students learn empirical-scientific principles, apply them to current discourses and relate them to the ethical, legal and social effects of digitalisation.
Law/Business Administration
In Law/Business Administration, basic knowledge of economics and law is taught and, building on this, the necessary know-how for managing innovations and setting up a company is covered.
Design/Skills
These lectures serve to ensure that all students develop the same understanding of design and media theories, have a comparable level of English language skills (important for participation in current scientific discourse) and how digital media can be designed and tested.
Study programme
1st Semester
IT Basics: An introduction to the machine processing of information. It covers topics such as information representation, abstraction, modelling and various subfields of computer science, including technical, theoretical, practical and applied computer science and artificial intelligence.
Mathematics: The course covers concepts and techniques from the fields of propositional logic, number theory and linear algebra. The foundations for further mathematical lectures are laid and applications of mathematics in the digital society are demonstrated.
Information psychology: Teaching the foundations of information psychology in digital societies and an understanding of empirical-scientific work. Students learn the basic functional areas of psychology and their relevance for social behaviour in digital societies.
Introduction in Socioinformatics: An overview of socioinformatics and the social aspects of digitalisation processes. Students are enabled to gain an overview of discourses in the field of a digital society and to formulate contributions at an empirically sound level.
Fundamentals of economics: The course teaches the basics of business administration and economics, including topics such as legal forms, productivity, profitability, management accounting, pricing in markets and national accounts.
Design- and Mediatheory: This course offers an insight into the most important design and media theories of the 20th century and the present day. The historical development of modern media culture and its social effects are analysed and discussed on the basis of case studies.
2nd Semester
Low-Code: The course content is procedural and object-oriented programming in Java in order to develop solution strategies for software development and to analyse existing solutions.
General electives (AWPF/AWPM): Further qualification beyond the programme content.
Media psychology: Teaching the social science basics of media use, media impact and communication on an individual, group and social level.
Empirical Foundations: Students learn empirical methods to prepare research topics, test theories and discuss ethical challenges in research projects.
Introduction to law: Basic knowledge of legal topics in the digital society in order to be able to categorise and evaluate legal issues.
English for IT: Improve oral and written communication skills in the IT sector in order to understand, write and present specialised texts in various situations.
3rd Semester
Foundations of Artificial Intelligence: The course covers the development, fundamentals and application areas of artificial intelligence (AI) and examines how AI is used in a digital society.
Software-Engineering: Study of algorithms, data structures, and software engineering fundamentals to analyze technical problems and develop solutions. You will also practice modeling requirements using UML.
Cognitive processes: Investigation of cognitive processing and measurement methods to better evaluate digital information and applications.
Topics in socioinformatics: Research into current discourses in the field of socioinformatics as well as the classification and analysis of digital developments. The content of this module is adapted each year to reflect current social and scientific discourses on the topic of digitalization.
Innovation management and corporation establishment: Teaching terms and concepts for developing business plans and business models.
User-Experience and Consumer psychology: The course covers user-centered web design, web usability, and accessible web design. Students learn how to plan, develop, test, and optimize web interfaces.
4th Semester
Soft- and professional skills: Learn basic skills in moderation, negotiation, body language, team and conflict management as well as work and presentation techniques.
IT-Projectmanagement: Students learn project management skills and methods, especially for project managers. They also learn various process models and agile methods such as Scrum and Kanban.
Human-Computer-Interaction: This course deepens your knowledge of human-centered design, usability, and accessible design. The course also includes analyses of typical tasks and the application of methods from human-computer interaction design.
ELSI and Digitisation: Investigation of the scientific and societal discourse on ethical challenges of digitalization as well as topics such as sustainability and resilience.
Copyright and media law: Transfer of skills in legal issues in the digital space, in particular usage and processing rights, licensing models and open source offerings.
Philosophy: An introduction to the fundamental understanding of design processes. Designs are analyzed, optimized, and examples are discussed. Furthermore, philosophical implications are linked to scientific topics such as image semiotics.
5th Semester
Internship: Applying and deepening acquired knowledge in practice. Students gain a better understanding of the processes in the real world of work.
You select a suitable company, institution, or government agency and work on a digitalization project there. Ideally, you gain practical experience across all project phases—analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation—and discover important personal focus areas for your future studies.
6th and 7th Semester
Project work: A team project (at least three students) that builds on both the theoretical foundation and the practical know-how acquired during the internship. It involves a task in the field of digitalization, which involves the analysis, development, implementation, and evaluation of a digital application in the context of a digital society. Each project is supervised by a lecturer from the Faculty of Computer Science and Business Information Systems.
Practical applications of digitalization: This module focuses on the implementation and application of digitalization in various contexts that will remain relevant in the future. Current examples and future application areas are discussed in relation to previously acquired skills. Topics such as “Digitalization of Municipal Services” and “Challenges in the Field of Autonomous Systems” serve as exemplary application areas.
FWPM I – VI: To deepen their individual study focus, students choose from free elective modules from the Faculty of Computer Science and Business Information Systems, the Faculty of Design, the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences, or, upon request, other faculties. At least one of the elective modules must be from the Faculty of Computer Science and Business Information Systems; the remaining modules can be used for an in-depth exploration of psychological, social, or design-related topics.
Bachelor-thesis and -seminar: Students demonstrate that, after completing their theoretical and practical studies, they are capable of independently researching a defined problem area. The chosen topic is first comprehensively described, the empirical and theoretical framework is discussed, and possible solutions are developed. Within a specified deadline, students demonstrate their own professional experience and independently select and apply appropriate methods. This includes, in particular, planning the individual work steps, writing a coherent scientific text, and appropriately presenting the key findings in a defense, which is practiced and assessed in the bachelor’s seminar.