The goal of the project is to develop a set of specifications and basic digital components that will make it possible to overcome the expected technological challenges efficiently and to ensure compliance with standards. The focus is directed towards three areas: interfaces, authentication, and IT security. Innovative offers from österreich.gv.at such as ID Austria form the basis of the developed modules; thus, these can be sustainably applied at the participating universities without needing to make other developments in parallel. The technical systems created are subsequently available to all participating universities, as their free licenses (as defined by OSI) enable their dissemination, and future developments can be built on these.

The innovative response to technological challenges

Due to progressive digitalisation, universities are facing technological and organisational challenges. Finding sustainable and efficient solutions to these challenges requires increased cooperation when designing, developing, and implementing measures.

Regulations that refer to future developments, such as eIDAS in the area of e-government, together with technologies such as OpenID Connect, form the legal and conceptual basis that enables sustainable solutions to be developed in the e-administration thematic area. The process of creating the necessary specifications and technical basic components should take place cooperatively in order to obtain sustainable results and avoid silo effects, overhead costs, and parallel developments within the Austrian university landscape. At the same time, the individual requirements of each of the organisations that will use these systems must be considered by taking a modular approach. This will guarantee the broad applicability of the results and allow the university a certain amount of individual freedom.

User expectations have increased in recent years, driven by rapid technology cycles; namely, users now often assume that they can have seamless user experiences, regardless of their device or university. Together with the expected requirements that will arise due to the increasing popularity of joint studies and other inter-university system uses, this consideration means that a collaboratively designed and developed technological foundation is becoming a key competitive factor for Austria's universities.

Aims of the initiative

The aim of this project is to develop a set of specifications and digital modules/applications that will make it possible to overcome future technological challenges efficiently and to comply with standards. Innovative offers from österreich.gv.at such as ID Austria, the electronic signature, the connection to centralised federal registers, and the joint delivery of programmes form the basis of the developed modules; thus, these can be sustainably applied at the participating universities without needing to make other developments in parallel.

The technical systems created are subsequently available to all participating universities, as their free licenses (as defined by OSI) enable their dissemination, and future developments can be built on these.

Potential synergies with other higher education institutions

The components, design elements, and content that are developed and successfully used will be made available as a complete package (human-university technology) with free licenses. The use of "standard building blocks" in many university applications enable the planned developments (e.g. in the area of e-government) to be made cost-effectively and the sustainable operation of university IT systems.

Cooperation between participating universities is greatly simplified by the use of common interfaces, data exchange formats, and security standards. Individual modules can be added to the system by using cooperative development methods, and local adaptations are easily possible thanks to the use of open source code.

By placing a special focus on vendor neutrality and communication via interfaces, lock-in effects and dependencies on specific companies and universities can be avoided. Data rights can be preserved, and simple GDPR compliance can be ensured, by making it possible to operate all modules locally. The use of the modular structure as a "building block system" allows each participating university to individually determine the depth of integration as well as to choose the modules used, and the university is allowed to maintain their individual freedom to make decisions.