A major success for the Technische Universität Ilmenau: In the latest call for proposals from the eTeach Network Thuringia for Cooperative Initiative Projects, two projects submitted by the Department of Economics and Media at the TU Ilmenau were selected for funding. A total of 25 projects were submitted by acadademic staff from all higher education institutions in Thuringia.
Study
Double success for TU Ilmenau in the 2026 eTeach project call for proposals
Two Cooperative Initiative Projects will launch in 2027
The eTeach Network Thuringia supports the state’s higher education institutions in pursuing the goal of jointly advancing digital and innovative teaching. It supports academic staff through, among other things, consulting, knowledge exchange, events, and funding for specific teaching development projects. The Cooperative Initiative Projects make it possible to jointly develop and test innovative teaching concepts, particularly those across institutional boundaries.
One of the funded projects is “PraxisSim – AI-Supported Practical Simulation for Applied Quantitative Problem Solving”. In PraxisSim, Prof. Volker Nissen and Johannes Brill from the Group for Service Information Systems Engineering at TU Ilmenau, in collaboration with Prof. Gustavo Sikora and Prof. Nils Boysen from the Chair of ABWL/Operations Management at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, will develop a web-based simulation in which students interact with AI-supported personas. These personas provide information – step-by-step, incompletely, or even contradictorily – depending on the questions asked. Thereby, students learn to structure unclear problems, gather specific information, develop appropriate solutions, and communicate results clearly.
Combining subject-specific learning with collaborative problem solving and digital skills
The second funded project is titled “Playful Skill Acquisition in Immersive Learning Environments on the Behavior of Structural Systems Under Seismic Loads – SKILLS”.
The project was submitted by Gunther Kreuzberger from the Virtual Worlds and Digital Games Gruop at TU Ilmenau, together with Lars Abrahamczyk, Professor of Complex Structures in the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Bauhaus University Weimar. In SKILLS, student groups develop immersive educational escape rooms focused on the behavior of structural systems under seismic loads. The XR application is designed to simulate damage scenarios that are otherwise difficult to address in teaching. The teaching concept combines subject-specific learning with collaborative problem-solving and the development of digital skills. The efficacy of this approach will be evaluated scientifically.
Mandy Maron from the Thuringia eTeach Network contact office at TU Ilmenau is delighted with this double success:
Both projects not only introduce new technologies into teaching but also use them specifically for particular learning situations. The approaches are didactically both well-thought-out and innovative, which convinced the inter-university review committee. I am very much looking forward to supporting the teams on their journeys.
The contact point also highlights the positive coordination during the application process: the trusting and constructive collaboration with the applicants worked very well.
The selected project teams are expected to present their work at events organized by the eTeach Network Thuringia. This will give them the opportunity to share their ideas, experiences, and results with an inter-university audience and to provide impetus for digital higher education in Thuringia.