After arriving in early summer, operation starts this autumn: The new Supercomputer in High Performance Computing "Marvin" starts his job. On October 20 this year, Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Michael Hoch and other representatives of the university, as well as Bonn's mayor Nicole Unterseh, will inaugurate the new computer, which belongs to the 500 fastest Supercomputers worldwide. 

With the last construction meeting, all of the necessary construction measures before and after the delivery of the new computer (as reported in July 2023), were successfully completed in time, as of September 29, 2023: 

Power supply is ensured and the workflows with energy suppliers, in case of necessary warnings concerning downtimes, last-tests, have been established. Furthermore, the functionality of the cooling system, the stability of the air temperatures during full workload and the emergency opening of all racks (in which the computing power is contained) has been tested. 

All that is left to be done, is the replacement of defect hardware and the configuration of the system, before doing the final configuration and the installation of the user software. Hence, mid-october the power-user-phase can be implemented where chosen power-users can test the system beforehand.

The new Supercomputer will be available to all members of the university and their project partners, starting December 2023. Scientists of the medical faculty and members of UKB with a Uni-ID can also take advantage of the new computing power. Advanced skills using Linux-HPC resources are necessary, you can also achieve these skills in the classes offered by the HPC-team of the University IT and Data Center. The HPC-team monitors the computing processes and the resource consumption to prevent improper usage. 

At the University IT and Data Center we offer a wide range of career opportunities in science and technology. People with very different educational backgrounds work here. Teamwork, reliability and competence are very important to us. That's why we're a diverse group - and we're proud of it!

But it's not just the tasks at the University IT and Data Center that are exciting, our team is also interesting. That's why we decided to expand our website to provide insights into the working world of our employees from different departments.

In our career section, in addition to our open job offers, you will now find another point “We at the University IT and Data Center", which takes you to the personal career pages of our employees from the areas of identity management, research data, networks, Atlassian and eCampus.

We have changed opening hours of our IT Helpdesk:

On Monday, 2nd October 2023 our IT Helpdesk will be in service from 09:00 a.m. - 02:00 p.m.

On Tuesday 3rd October 2023 the IT Helpdesk will be closed due to Day of German Unity. 

As of September 15, 2023, students assistants will once again automatically receive staff Uni-IDs. They no longer need to submit a separate application.

The change-over applies to all new student and research assistants (SHK, WHK, WHF with employment start date 15/09/2023) and current assistants (except SHK, WHK, WHF whose contract ends in by September 30, 2023 and seasonal assistants).

If you are employed as an SHK, WHK or WHF at the University of Bonn on September 15th and you do not yet have an staff-Uni-ID, you will receive a letter with your new staff-Uni-ID and all necessary information.

Please do not apply for a change of your student Uni-ID if you continue your studies.

Interactive DELFI workshop

ChatGPT has abruptly taken over the press and especially social media, sparking a new hype about artificial intelligence (AI). Many AI services (e.g. for generating text or images) are now accessible to the general public. As a result, these new AI offerings are in high demand and are being discussed. On the other hand, the possible dangers and risks of AI are also debated, especially in critical sectors such as medicine and education.

Looking ahead, the motto of this year's International Conference AI and Education (AIED) 2023 was therefore: "AI in Education for Sustainable Society" combined with the call for inclusion, which should include everyone ("leaves no one behind"). The all-day workshop at the AIED 2023 conference in Tokyo on ethical and institutional issues relating to AI and education focused primarily on the three core topics of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Council of Europe's new AIED report, which is based on these three pillars, was also presented.

"The main result of the workshop is the common realization that schools and universities need to communicate much more with pupils and students as well as with colleagues, teachers and parents," says workshop moderator Dr. Christian M. Stracke from the University of Bonn. Therefore, together with Dr. Jan Kleinmanns from the Bonn university computer center started to offer internal workshops for all interested parties at the University of Bonn, which were fully booked after just one day including a waiting list. The discussion with external colleagues will take place in a next workshop on the guidelines for the ethical use of AI in of education at the German e-learning conference DELFI 2023. On Monday, September 11, 2023, all interested parties are invited to the DELFI workshop in Aachen in the morning. In small groups and finally in the plenum, it will then be discussed how guidelines for a trustworthy and ethical use of AI in education can be developed and designed. Individual ideas for future use of AI in education should be developed and mutually presented and discussed.

IT security needs more than one factor - multi-factor authentication is coming

Multi-factor authentication (MFA), which is already familiar from everyday life and is used as a general security standard, e.g. for online banking, is now being gradually introduced at the University of Bonn.

In order to find out what is behind MFA and in what form it is carried out at the University of Bonn, we asked the team of experts in the University IT and Data Center, which designs and coordinates the introduction of MFA at the university, five questions:

With the move from Zoom to "Zoom X", the University of Bonn has kept its promise to find a data protection alternative to the Zoom US servers. Since March 2023, all university members have not only been able to benefit from a significantly improved data protection basis, but also from constantly new features.

Two new features will be activated on September 1, 2023: the Zoom whiteboard and direct messages (during a Zoom meeting).

The whiteboard is the new digital canvas in Zoom X, on which ideas and results can be collected and recorded together. With the whiteboard, meetings can now be designed collaboratively and interactively. Whiteboards can be prepared before the meeting and shared after the meeting.

You can find out which settings have to be made in your Zoom account for the Zoom X whiteboard in the instructions in the HRZ documentation (accessible only in BONNET or via VPN): Whiteboard

The eCampus team is again offering a wide range of webinars in the winter semester 2023/2024 to support you in digital teaching.
For beginners and new employees, there are introductions to the use of eCampus. In other webinars you can learn more about specific tools and formats such as eLecture and eTests.

Here you can view all courses for teachers and staff in the winter semester 2023/2024.