To teach many recent topics within digital technology at scale requires proper software infrastructures to support the teaching for lab exercises and projects. Some of these topics are data-driven systems, AI and cloud computing. Commercial providers are offering cloud computing and AI resources, however, in many situations these are ill fit for teaching activities as they are complex for early learners, are problematic due to GDPR, make teaching material obsolete by rapidly changing their UIs and when scaled add a significant cost. Therefore, there is an unmet need for better cloud-like infrastructures which can host sandbox software and datasets for teaching to improve onboarding and retention of students.

The universities have or are building new computing resources for research and teaching. So far, the primary focus has been on research in the form of e-science initiatives (e.g. SDU e-Science Center UCloud or AAU CLAUDIA) or e-infrastructure (e.g. DEIC) providing services with a general focus on all sciences. However, there is a need to complement or customise these services with offers for teaching in digital technologies.

The aim is to Improve the Danish software infrastructure for teaching in digital technologies by coordinating cross-institutional development of software infrastructure for teaching including software toolkits, access to data sandboxes and access to the Danish national DeiC Type1 HPC for educational cloud computing.

The aim is to improve onboarding and retention of students result in an ability to teach more students and lower dropout rates.

The mix of students in digital technology is low in diversity (e.g. female students). This is a problem on a societal level which also impacts the study environment.

The partners have already implemented a range of initiatives to address the problem. ITU has several initiatives targeting both recruitment, onboarding, and retention of female students. In the project “Øget diversitet på de teknisk-naturvidenskabelige it-uddannelser” lead by It-vest, the three universities AU, AAU, and SDU are collaborating to implement new initiatives.

Establish inclusive teaching/learning activities that support diversity; e.g., by supporting recruitment, onboarding, and retention of female students. The initiatives will take inspiration from established programs (e.g., Boot-IT & IT-Camp at ITU, Open Innovation X, HealthTech), but – as a unique element – favor scenarios and domains with a stronger appeal to women as well as emphasize inclusion, interaction, and collaboration over competition.

Increase the diversity of students in the educational programmes.

Teaching quality and student feedback is negatively impacted by lack of teachers and many students. There is a need to consider how learning technologies can help improve teaching quality and student feedback both in physical and digital learning environments. The resources for teaching at universities are being reduced and we experience challenges in current technology such as MOOCs (which is at scale).

Within the educational programs digital learning tools have been developed and utilised for many years, e.g. for video lectures, automated correction of exercises, and automated multiple-choice exams etc. However, it does not substitute direct teacher-to-student supervision and the need for teachers to constantly develop existing and new courses to meet the standards.

Scale teaching methods for both physical and digital teaching environments to higher number of students via digital learning technology and a combination of face2face learning, student driven learning and digital learning technology.

Increasing the teaching quality at scale with learning technology will enable educational programs to educate more students and improve retention.