Joint Project THInKI

Thuringian university initiative for artificial intelligence (AI) in studies

THInKI project team members

Image: Oliver Mothes

In recent years, the term artificial intelligence (AI) has appeared in more and more areas of our everyday lives. A wide variety of everyday objects and devices have become smart and are designed to make one's life easier. However, in addition to the development of intelligent algorithms for consumer products, such AI methods are also increasingly being developed and researched in research-related fields such as medicine, psychology, natural sciences and humanities. Based on the current federal digital strategy and the assumption that AI as a key technology will continue to find application in many research areas in the future, students as well as graduates in this field should also be enabled to acquire the necessary competencies.

In the joint project THInKI, existing as well as new teaching content is to be modernized over the four-year term of the project and a joint certificate programme for students and graduates of both universities is to be implemented, which should provide the opportunity to acquire the necessary competencies in the subfields of artificial intelligence. The materials are to be designed and made available primarily in digital, interactive form so that they can ultimately be used by both universities and events can be held across universities. At the University of Jena, the following chairs and institutions are involved in the project:

Medical Computer Science
Radiology
Digital Humanities
Advanced Computing, Scalable Data and Computational Intensive Analyses, Scientific Computing
Natural Sciences
Psychological Methodology
Didactics of Mathematics
Historical Pedagogy and Global Education
zedif – Competence Center Digital Research

Through the two-step, modularized and cross-university certificate programme, students and graduates of both universities shall be able to acquire different AI competencies on different levels during their studies and while working. At the University of Jena, THInKI is also closely linked to the university's internal certificate programme Data Literacy Jena, DaLiJe de, which teaches basic skills for acquiring, managing, and processing digital data and includes much of the basic content for the first level of the THInKI certificate, which is predominantly geared toward non-science majors.