Digital teaching in Saxony-Anhalt: New initiatives for the future!

Digital teaching in Saxony-Anhalt: New initiatives for the future!

Universities in Saxony-Anhalt have made significant progress in the digitalization of their teaching approaches. As the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) reported in a recent communication from the eService Agency Saxony-Anhalt, electronic examinations have been successfully established at all locations. New concepts for modern teaching made it possible to test innovative teaching methods that benefit students.

As part of this process, online training courses for teachers were also developed. The MLU and the Innovation in University Teaching Foundation have been supporting these initiatives since the project began in summer 2021, which will be supported with more than seven million euros over four and a half years.

State initiative for digitalization and higher education

In addition, a new state initiative entitled “State Initiative for Digitalization and Higher Education” will be launched from 2026. This initiative is intended to bundle cross-university measures in the areas of didactic innovations, further training and digital transformation. This was recognized as an answer to the challenges that universities face, particularly due to changing student needs and the use of artificial intelligence.

The eService Agency Saxony-Anhalt, which was launched as a joint project with several universities, aims to coordinate the sustainable development of digitalization in university education. As part of the eSALSA project, specific priorities are set, including e-examinations, hybrid teaching/learning scenarios and online qualification offers.

Conference on innovative university worlds

The progress and new trends will be presented on Friday, October 17, 2025, at the “Innovative University Worlds” conference in the Central German Multimedia Center in Halle (Saale). Keynote lectures from experts such as Dr. Klaus Wannemacher, Jonas Leschke and Prof. Dr. Pablo Pirnay-Stummers are expected. Further lectures and workshops on relevant topics such as artificial intelligence, learning analytics and open educational resources are also planned.

Although the universities in Saxony-Anhalt pursue different approaches to the digitalization of teaching and there are both successes and challenges, the focus on sustainable digital support for higher education is unmistakable. The analysis of the existing teaching, learning and examination scenarios has already led to sustainable structures in the technical equipment, as the information on sustainability in the higher education sector can show. All of these efforts are in the context of a broader eLearning debate, in which platforms such as E-teaching.org and studies such as the Horizon Report 2022 address trends such as learning analytics and hybrid learning space.

With these initiatives, Saxony-Anhalt will not only strengthen the digitalization of higher education, but also make a significant contribution to the development of new learning formats and adaptation to the needs of students. As the AHEAD study also shows, the higher education landscape is changing and requires strategies that take both technical and didactic innovations into account.