News

Markus Baya (Tribe Lead Analytics) and Markus Raster (Data Science) from atruvia AG gave an industry talk in our master lecture “Business Intelligence Systems”. In their talk, they presented the technological evolution from Data Warehouse,  Data Lake towards Data Mesh architectures. They also showcased the potential of open source technologies for advanced analytics. In addition, they explained how the entire organization has been transformed towards an agile model.

Organizations are faced with the challenge of exploiting the potential of their data. Thereby, the ability of employees to independently gain new insights from the available data and make decisions on this basis plays a central role. In the context of data science and business intelligence & analytics systems, the design of innovative interaction concepts to support end users in data work is taking on an increasingly important role.

We welcome Simon Rapp as a new team member and junior researcher in the human-centered systems lab of Prof. Mädche at IISM.  

Simon received a B.Sc. degree in Information Systems at KIT. He is member of the AI-based process in work & life team and works on digital inclusion and accessibility. In parallel to his research work at h-lab, he works at EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG with a specific focus on enterprise chatbots and large-language models.

Further information about Simon: https://h-lab.iism.kit.edu/team_3040.php 

With the upcoming entry into force of the Barrier-Free-Act (BFSGV) in 2025, we want to use this evening to focus on your perspectives, challenges and ideas. The law creates the basis for an inclusive world and is therefore crucial for the participation of all citizens in the digital world. Our discussion is intended to provide space for your experiences and perspectives on accessibility in everyday life, at work and in research. Be it in the context of digital platforms, barrier-free events or access to research results – your opinions are the heart of our exchange. 

The human-centered systems lab (h-lab) of KIT is member of a recently started project titled “Mittelstand-Digital Center Focus Human” (https://www.digitalzentrum-fokus-mensch.de/). The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). The goal of the project is to supports medium-sized companies in Germany in their human-centered digitalization journey.  

Further information is available here:  https://h-lab.iism.kit.edu/1474_2847.php  

The International Journal of Human - Computer Studies (IJHCS) has accepted the paper The Impact of Video Meeting Systems on Psychological User States: A State-of-the-Art Review” co-authored by Julia Seitz, Ivo Benke, Armin Heinzl and Alexander Maedche for publication.  In this study, we review and conceptualize findings from 78. quantitative studies and describe the results in a morphological box. We identified a focus on examining the overall systems’ impact on the user states of attention, awareness, and negative emotions. The research has been performed as part of the DFG-funded KD2School. Further information is available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1071581923001878  

The information system students Katrin Krebs, Moritz Mistol, and Jule Teresa Pade received an IS scholarship funded by Schwarz IT. The scholarship runs for 12 months and supports scholarship holders with 300 Euros per month. The scholarship is awarded by the non-profit association "Die Wirtschaftsinformatik e.V." and serves to promote young people in the field of IS. The scholarship is funded by companies that provide the financial support. For the 2023/24 period, three IS scholarships were funded by Schwarz IT KG at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). We congratulate the scholarship holders and thank Schwarz IT for their support. 

The research groups of Professors Mädche, Satzger, and Weinhardt will be represented with 6 papers at the International Conference on Information Systems, which will take place in Hyderabad, India in December. Congratulations to all authors!

We welcome Adrian Wegener as a new team member and doctoral researcher in the human-centered systems lab of Prof. Mädche at IISM.  

Adrian received a Master of Arts degree in Intermedia Design. He is member of the Gaze-based Workplace and Extended Reality team and works on digital inclusion and accessibility. In parallel to his research work at h-lab, he works as senior project manager at Ergosign GmbH with a specific focus on accessibility.  

Further information about Adrian:  https://h-lab.iism.kit.edu/team_3016.php  

Eye contact plays a very important role in social interactions. 

In contrast to face-to-face communication, this is much more challenging in video conferences The lack of this information makes the flow of communication more difficult and can therefore have a negative impact on team dynamics and outcomes.

In order to solve this problem, participants in a video conference could leverage information about the gaze behavior of other team members using eye-tracking technology. However, it is important to design this visualization in such a way that it does not appear disturbing or distracting and therefore only reflects natural gaze behavior. What potential and dangers do you see? How would you design this visualization and which factors should you pay particular attention to?   Tom Reuscher and Julia Seitz will run this event as part of the DFG-funded KD2School.  

Municipalities' open data initiatives have increased in importance in recent years and make a significant contribution to promoting transparency, innovation and citizen participation. Many German cities have recognized that releasing public data offers great benefits to the general public.

As part of the “It’s not rocket science” event series, we would like to introduce you to the open data portal of the city of Karlsruhe and talk about the possible uses. We are specifically interested in which services and applications could offer citizens an advantage to better leverage the potential of the data. Till Carlo Schelhorn is offering this round table as part of the AI Alliance Baden-Württemberg: Data Platforms project.

The event takes place in Triangel on Oct 18th, 5 PM. Further information is available https://www.triangel.space/event/stammtisch-data-citizens/

Members of the human-centered systems lab (h-lab) exchanged ideas with the Google team "UX Research for Material Design" headed by Frank Bentley in a joint workshop at KIT. We presented and discussed running research projects and opportunities in the fields of Human-Centered Design Methods & Tools, Accessibility, Personalization & Adaptive Systems, Biosignals, and Wearables.   

We thank Ivo Benke for initiating the contact and Frank Bentley, Lennard Schmidt, and Tiffany Knearem for the fruitful exchange. We look forward to continuing this exciting collaboration with Google!