bridgingAI
The individual application "bridgingAI - building interdisciplinary bridges to AI" was submitted within the framework of the federal-state initiative for the promotion of artificial intelligence in higher education. 1.9 million euros were requested for a project period of 4 years.
Goals of the Project
The bridgingAI project aims to enable students to evaluate, use, and develop artificial intelligence in a meaningful and responsible way. A common basic competence should enable students to actively shape science, industry, and society in the AI era beyond their own subject perspective.
Building and securing cross-disciplinary AI competence is a strategic goal for RWTH Aachen University as an interdisciplinary, integrated university of science and technology. A variety of approaches exist for teaching AI competencies. bridgingAI aims to build a bridging curriculum at the transition from Bachelor to Master for a variety of disciplines. In view of the diverse target groups, the micro Bachelor being developed requires a scalable and at the same time standardized offer with high attractiveness for as many students as possible.
The creation of all modules is therefore based on the premise of interdisciplinary cooperation and co-production between several faculties. The developed micro Bachelor will include ten MOOCs in the first stage of development, which will enable an entry into AI educational content from several starting levels. All MOOCs will be published as Open Educational Resources and accessible via the edX platform. The main goal is to provide interdisciplinary and multiprofessional access to AI-based research and applications for students from as many disciplines as possible, with a special focus on sciences and engineering.
Goals
- Learning – A common basic competence should enable students to evaluate, use, and develop artificial intelligence in a meaningful and responsible way.
- Teaching – Establishing future-oriented and professionally validated competencies in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) for students from as many disciplines as possible.
- Applying – The development of a micro Bachelor's degree with diverse approaches to teaching AI competencies, as well as the establishment of a bridging curriculum at the transition from Bachelor's to Master's degree.
- Networking – AI expertise should be built up in the first step and then be transferable to many other universities in the form of Open Educational Resources (OER).
Prof. Dr. Holger Rauhut, Prof. Dr. Erhard Cramer, Prof. Dr. Markus Strohmaier, Prof. Dr. Saskia Nagel, Prof. Dr. Will van der Aalst, Prof. Dr. Sebastian Trimpe, and PD Dr. Malte Persike are working under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Bastian Leibe to establish interdisciplinary, future-oriented, and professionally assured competencies in the field of artificial intelligence for students from as many disciplines as possible.
RWTH is thus taking on an important challenge that many universities are currently facing. Scalable solutions are needed that build on the AI expertise available at RWTH and can then be transferred to many other universities in the form of Open Educational Resources, short OER.