Students these days all have something in common: regardless of their course, they have to navigate the digital (working) world. This makes it all the more important for them to be equipped with all the right tools in this area, as part of their studies. At TU Wien, learning about the digital world is therefore a high priority. With effect from the academic year 2019/20, TU Wien has been offering an additional 'Digital Skills' course to all undergraduate students, for which they will be awarded 30 ECTS credits as an additional qualification. The additional course aims to help students develop their digital literacy skills and to teach them how to make creative use of digital technologies, as well as how to modify and enhance them independently. This active involvement in the innovation process is an advantage in the labour market that is not to be underestimated.

What do we mean by digital skills?

The additional 'Digital Skills' course provides basic training of an academically and methodologically high quality, which aims to provide enduring knowledge. This course is open to all undergraduates at TU Wien, except for Informatics students as this will be covered as part of their regular course of study.

The additional course is based on three pillars:

• General principles of digitalization: discuss basic concepts of digitalization and enable students to question them critically
• Informatics principles of digitalization: develop a basic understanding of informatics concepts such as algorithms, information models, data and visualization, as well as the technical basics of information systems
• Application fields of digitalization: recognise the potential of digitalization in the area of application of the student's own main course and implement relevant concepts

By completing the three modules of this additional course, students acquire technical, methodological, cognitive and practical skills. Personal and social skills enable critical discussion of the consequences of digitalization and the impact on society.

How can I take part in this additional course?

The first classes will run from the summer semester 2020. These will begin with lectures on 'Ways of thinking in digital technologies' and the 'Fundamentals of programming and algorithms'. Students can register by enrolling for the additional course through the academic department. As with other classes, they can then register for the respective class via TISS.

Contact information:

• Dean of Academic Affairs Ao.Univ.Prof. Dr. Christian Huemer
• Dean's Office of the Faculty of Informatics Christoph Neuherz