Ukraine Digital

The war against Ukraine has negatively influenced the infrastructure and higher education system of the country. The buildings and campuses of many Ukrainian higher education institutions in the areas most affected by the fighting were damaged or completely destroyed. Many professors and students were forced to leave the country because of the war. Despite the active hostilities, Ukrainian higher education institutions continue to operate, using digital and remote methods of providing information. Due to a lack of staff and obsolete materials, some courses could not be offered in sufficient numbers. Consequently, Ukrainian students are unable to complete their studies. For this reason, in September 2022, Hochschule Mittweida, in cooperation with the DAAD, started working on the project Ukraine Digital: Studienerfolg durch praxisorientierte Onlinelehre.

The main activity of the Ukraine Digital project based at the Mittweida University of Applied Sciences is the transfer of digital scientific materials. Currently, German teaching materials in 25 subjects have been transferred to Ukrainian universities since September 2022. These sources compensate for the gaps in the education system at our partner universities in Dnipro and Odesa – DNU and ONEU.

The second focus of the Ukraine Digital project is to develop digital competencies and promote professional e-learning among the participants of the Ukrainian partner universities and the Mittweida University of Applied Sciences. Hochschule Mittweida has begun to create a structural framework for digitising its educational offer using the Saxon learning platform OPAL. The Ukraine Digital project also introduced interactive e-learning programmes that are actively used at Hochschule Mittweida into the educational process of DNU and ONEU. They include Kahoot!, Mentimeter and Prezi.

Another area of work of the Ukraine Digital project is financial support for students at partner universities. The Mittweida University of Applied Sciences received a large number of students from Ukraine during the war. From our experience, we realised that there are more funding opportunities for Ukrainian students in Germany (e.g. BAföG, numerous scholarships from DAAD, Erasmus, etc.) than for those who stayed in their home country. For this reason, we decided to offer scholarships for students directly in Ukraine. A special commission was set up to select the scholarship holders. It is worth noting that the criteria assessed not only the academic performance and activity of the applicant, but also the impact of the war on him or her. As a result, 98 Ukrainian students have already received financial support in the form of scholarships.

The most important measure for adapting the transferred educational material is the writing of scientific articles by students of partner universities. Each semester, we publish an online collection of students' research articles based on the results of this activity. On 27 and 28 September 2023, the first online scientific conference was held, where students from DNU and ONEU presented their work. It is worth emphasising that the topics of many students concerned current issues in Ukraine.

The goals of the Ukraine Digital project at the Mittweida University of Applied Sciences with DAAD support for 2024 are to provide a training course and develop teaching materials to update the course on ERP systems at Ukrainian partner universities in Odesa and Dnipro. This idea comes from surveys conducted in 2023, in which professors identified the need for such a course. Before the war in Ukraine, information management courses at our partner universities were mostly based on the Russian ERP system 1C. Nowadays, the use of Russian software in education is prohibited by the government, but there are not enough teachers and local experts in this field to switch to another programme. With the help of the experience, existing teaching materials and the Hochschule Mittweida network, the implementation of SAP will allow our partners to update their existing courses and integrate them back into the educational programme.

Moreover, the Ukraine Digital project is creating strong ties that will form the basis for future German-Ukrainian cooperation between higher education institutions.