As a cooperation and service platform that supports digital and social transformation, the digital university hub promotes the networking and development of universities.

As a collaborative initiative of TU Graz, Uni Graz, and Uni Vienna, the digital university hub (DUH) brings together university stakeholders in the field of digital and social transformation. Shared know-how promotes mutual success and prepares Austria's universities to meet future challenges. The participatory idea supports the progress of the participating higher education institutions.

The free access to tools, methods, and experiences available via the digital university hub provides fertile ground for new developments. Open, trusting interactions with and among the participating actors and cooperation partners are promoted, revealing clear insights into innovative examples of digital and social transformation, change management, and (open source) software projects and IT services in higher education.

Change connects!

Sustainable digitalisation and process methods are created by networking key projects and people. DUH thus creates a resonance space for the growing inter-university community. Effectiveness and benefits are prioritised in the work.

Together with the Digital Blueprint and Austrian University Toolkit projects, the digital university hub project is one of three core projects in the Administration field of action at TU Graz. All three projects are being carried out with the University of Vienna and University of Graz until the end of 2024 and are financially supported by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research. 

The digital university hub (DUH) represents the continuation of an inter-university service platform developed by the project partners University of Vienna, University of Graz, and TU Graz, building on the basic technological components of the 'Digital Blueprint'.

This service platform provides an umbrella structure for technical and general digitalisation initiatives in e-administration.

In the sub-project Co-Working Space for Change Management Methodology, models and processes are developed that are used to expand and update digitalisation strategies, and their successful application in the industrial-social university system is planned. The "Basic Toolkit for Transformation Management" outlines good-practice examples, overall processes, guidelines for implementation, instruction and training concepts for digital skills, and "proof of strategy" and "proof of culture" measures for transformation management.

When creating the platform, it is necessary to ensure that an existing open source development environment (Gitlab) can be used and that the results flow back into the open source community. The development platform acts as an inter-university support system for software development, providing access to source code repositories, testing and deployment tools, an issue tracker, and a cooperative solution for all participating universities (SW development/community of practice, project reports/LeLe/Whitepagers).

By the end of the project, the platform will be set up and used by experts in transformation and change management in both national and international higher education settings as a communication, networking, and working platform. The result is a "Community Building & Digital Cooperation Tool" that can be used to build and maintain digital, cooperative communities.

Goals of the digital university hub

• Establish as a hub that provides information and collaboration opportunities and that supports digitalisation in Austrian higher education

• Jointly develop and disseminate innovative open source software solutions that support digitalisation at universities

• Establish a network of experts that promote digital transformation at Austrian universities

• Establish a transformation management approach that can be used to support digitalisation at universities

• Support the development of a 'collaborative mindset' at Austrian universities

• Hold an inter-university conference in 2023

Target groups

Decision-makers (rectorates & vice rectorates) 

• They should get a quick overview of what DUH has to offer and see DUH as an opportunity to disseminate information about their projects. The DUH should make them want to learn more about the topics presented via the DUH.

Software developers 

• They should be given easy and unbureaucratic access to technical resources, including guidelines on how to use and implement these.

Transformation managers (organisational developers, organisational leaders, change managers)

• They should receive information about how transformation management is established and practiced at universities, as well as how transformation management is applied in individual projects and which tools are used to do so. In addition, they should receive help in finding a network in which they would like to participate.

Technical management (technical OU managers, service owners, DevOps, and people who work in the broader IT area and who are interested in digitalisation in higher education)

• They should be given a general technical overview and have access to instructions and blueprints.

Project and process managers

• They should be given a good overview of the initiatives and how these are being carried out. They should be given the opportunity to present and disseminate information about their own projects.

Work packages

WP 01 - Project management digital university hub (lead at TU Graz)

WP 02 - Models and processes: Here, different models that are used to sustainably anchor digitalisation at universities are continuously compiled, and updated policies on digitalisation and its use at universities are recorded.

WP 03 - Proof of Strategy & Culture: Models that can be used to measure digitalisation effects will be made available (e.g. participative "Marketplace" innovation programme from TU Graz).

WP 04 - Education and training concept for "Digital Literacy and Skills": Concepts and programmes are currently being developed in response to the ministry's call for proposals. These and other offers will be mapped at DUH and made available to the community.

WP 05 - Basic Tookit: The goal is to develop a change management guide, including detailed theoretical and practical tools, which will be made available via DUH. Whitepapers and current manuals can be made available here.

WP 06 - Community of Practice: An emphasis is placed on developing an Austrian network of experts, encouraging participants to exchange dialogue and experiences.

WP 07 - Website: Digital transformation in higher education: https://www.digitaluniversityhub.eu/net/org/com - Information and service platform.

WP 08 - Development platform: After a design phase and a market review, the "Gitlab" system was selected from among the available offers; this optimally fulfils all requirements regarding licensing, functionality, and scalability.

WP 09 - - Creation of a technical communication platform: This work package is currently covered by WP 11 from the University of Graz. The goal is to create a collaborative communication tool.

WP 10 - Pilot Uni Wien – HR4U: The University of Vienna is contributing experiences made in the SAP implementation project HR4U: to the digital hub. The focus was directed towards aspects of change management, and, as a result, different topics were highlighted. In addition to reflecting on the structural organisation of change structures, staff experiences with learning processes (increasing expertise) can also be examined.

WP 11 - Pilot Uni Graz – Collaboration platform "digital Workspace": The increased need for digitalisation due to the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that virtual communication and collaboration platforms have become significantly more important at higher education institutions. The existing commercial solutions do not generally meet university stakeholders’ specific needs, which require a wide variety of working methods to be integrated. The Uni Graz’s new orientation also aligns with the goals in the call for proposals on "digital and social transformation". In this call, the aim is essentially to achieve open systems and open interfaces. These systems not only need to be able to coexist but also to be integrated as a whole, allowing the connection of topically similar processes, communication channels, and collaboration platforms. By developing agile processes and user-centred concepts, the needs of various stakeholders will be addressed, and integrated solutions will be discursively developed and tested.

WP 12 - Pilot TU Graz – Reallabor – COVID-19 – Level 2: The project was launched in May 2020 and carried out by a scientific team as a qualitative study across all fields of action (teaching, research, and administration) at TU Graz. The goal was to extract "lessons learned" from the "enforced digitalisation" and to document the experiences made in the situation. The findings of this qualitative social study, collected from teaching, research, administration, and student participants, were examined in development measures for the respective RF. The study method used by the scientific team from the Institute of Interactive Systems and Data Science was also used by the Province of Styria and resulted in a study carried out at all Styrian universities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

WP 13 - Collaborative project: In this work package, the collaborative project "DUH Conference" will be developed and carried out together with the partner universities.

AP 14 - Change Management was completed in the first phase "Initiate Change". The results are a change vision and the cornerstones of a change architecture. The first lesson learned indicated that 2021 would be dedicated to the topic of collaboration. Digital change projects usually use similar tools as those used in other projects, but pre-planning the social process is also critical for success. Therefore, the project is supported by a change management expert.

WP 15 – Finalising and anchoring change – new cultural approaches: There is rarely a follow-up to determine how (well) an organisation accepts a completed change project. To prevent typical difficulties, an anchoring phase must be planned for the time period after the actual change has been made.

WP 16 - The goal is to sustainably embed the platform in the higher education landscape by the end of 2024. In the meantime, DUH will be offered as an additional dissemination tool for digitalisation projects, networks, and training.

WP 17 – Future of the DUH domain: The decision regarding the further use of the website will be made with project partners. This results in change management during the finalisation and anchoring process.

Participation & potential synergies with other universities

CALL FOR EXPERTS – Working Groups

• When the project began, several working groups were formed to achieve the digital university hub’s (DUH) defined goals. Together with the working groups Spirit Hub, Connect Hub, and IT Hub, we now turn to you as motivated experts working in the field of digital transformation at higher education institutions.

The DUH Network: SAY HI! - SAY WHY! - Change connects! 

• This motto issues an invitation to change agents at all Austrian universities to network and exchange ideas. The network has been developed especially for project managers, experts, and staff who are affected by digital transformation in the areas of teaching, research, administration, and third mission. The central theme here the development and peer exchange regarding specific tools and methods that will promote successful digitalisation at higher education institutions.

Submit & publish your digitalisation initiative

• As a representative of an Austrian higher education institution, you can publish your digital transformation plans or your digital projects on this platform. In this way, you can tell your story, collaborate, and inspire people at other universities. These valuable experiences will thus be freely available to the general public.

Collaboration & co-design on the DUH Development Platform

• The number of developers needed to work simultaneously on comprehensive and longer-term digitalisation projects places significant demands on the processes and systems required to create the necessary software components. The definition and use of common working methods is an important factor for success. Development platforms can efficiently help developers overcome these challenges by providing tools that automatically and regularly check compliance with the specifications and provide suggestions for improvement if needed.