Excellence in teaching

Information system teaching awarded the Hessian university prize for excellence in teaching

The BISEBS project (Business Informatics for Economics and Business Students) at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Kassel has proven that teaching can meet the individual needs of students even with a large number of participants. For this, BISEBS has now been awarded the Hessian University Prize for Excellence in Teaching. The prize money is 50,000 euros. The prize has been awarded by the State of Hesse and the non-profit Hertie Foundation since 2007. BISEBS Business Informatics for Economics and Business Students) was developed by Prof. Dr. Jan Marco Leimeister, Dr. Reinhard Gerhold, Marco Hartmann, Philipp Menschner, Andreas Prinz and René Wegener, business IT specialists at the University of Kassel. BISEBS provides students of economics with an introduction to business informatics. The main idea is that even with a large number of participants, teaching can meet individual needs, especially through intelligent use of IT, and must convey both (factual) knowledge as well as media, method and application skills.

Components are two business informatics lectures (Info I & II). As a compulsory module, Info I offers a large number of students (approx. 300 per semester) an introduction to the basics of business informatics. Info II serves to acquire methodical and application competence in dealing with programming tools. What is new is the active participation of the students in teaching: In the Info I lecture, they design and examine questions that will ultimately be used in the exam (Co-Create-Your-Exam). These several-minute phases also serve as a short mental recovery for the students. A virtual learning environment is used for supervision, on which, among other things, interactive recordings and a live transmission of the lecture are provided. Contact with lecturers is also ensured via email, consultation hours and video consultation hours.

The students of Info II, accompanied by the lecturers, create learning applications on selected topics from Info I. The procedure follows a real software development process from conception to final implementation. The created applications are used in Info I as teaching material. This approach supports the deepening of media skills, the appreciation of student achievements and the continuous further development of the event.


The BISEBS project (headed by Prof. Dr. Jan Marco Leimeister) fits into the extensive e-learning strategy of the University of Kassel, which is coordinated by the central teaching service center. In this way, BISEBS makes a contribution to the further dissemination of media-based teaching at the University of Kassel.