Mission Statement
1.) The experience-oriented courses on offer ensure the link between the academic context and the realities of working life.
The University Degree Programmes for working professionals build on the experience acquired by students during their working life to date and enhance them during the course of the Degree Programme. This experience should form the basis for all courses that are taught, thus enabling students to establish a direct link between theory and academic principles on the one hand, and the challenges of commercial reality on the other. Motivation for each student’s thesis should be supported by the illustration of the technical and organizational parameters and should be shown as being a reasonable necessity.
Admission tests, technical discussions and problem-solving tasks show the teaching staff the current knowledge and initial level of students at the beginning of the Degree Programme. The students’ willingness to introduce research approaches and problem-solving skills from the industry or their own businesses enables a more in-depth and rational tackling of the challenges presented by automation technology. Students are required to choose and work on precise themes from the industry within the framework of their theses.
2.) A goal-oriented approach makes strict planning and the implementation of modern learning strategies possible.
The University Degree Programmes for working professionals draw on all of the resources of the students’ capacity to learn by using methods geared to learning objectives. Relevant structuring of the teaching sessions evokes the concentration and diligence needed for the intellectual solving of recognizable and reasonable problems. Stimulation teaching and learning methods ensure knowledge gain right from when the teaching session begin.
Catalogues of learning objectives, straightforward laboratory programmes and a broad course content stimulate the students and encourage commitment. Precise tasks allow students to learn about the direction, the required quality and the standards vis-à-vis the quantity of their performance during the Degree Programme.
3.) Networked thinking and learning enable us to achieve a more flexible analysis of the technologies of automation technology.
An overall academic analysis is encouraged through food for thought geared to cross-linking. All components of automation technology become clear during the course of the Degree Programme. Economic, social and socio-political challenges guarantee an overall view and prevent one-dimensional problem-solving.
The fundamentals of each of the knowledge areas are developed during the first semesters in separate and individual teaching sessions. As the Degree Programme progresses, interdisciplinary modules and trans-sectoral projects are increasingly incorporated into the compulsory programme. It is during the preparation of the thesis topic that considering all knowledge areas is especially instrumental in being awarded a pass mark, whilst also being an important part of the oral examination.
4.) Social and language skills enable satisfying interaction and communication with users in the age of automation.
The nurturing of interpersonal skills means improving the employer-employee relationship. The ability to convey clear messages, a confident appearance, the acceptance of complex opinions of other people, a strong capacity for leadership and foreign languages are all further skills that graduates of our University Degree Programmes aspire to.
Social skills are taught using special teaching methods applied during numerous practical exercises in almost all subject areas of the Degree Programme. In addition, other sessions provide training on presentations, conflict resolution and negotiations. Foreign language teaching uses both modern multimedia learning supports (CBT) and modern language teaching techniques, including face to face.
5.) Negotiation-oriented solving of problems from the automation technology sector is made possible using modern tools, test facilities and future-oriented steering and control installations.
Transferring theory to practice and vice-versa is taught using modern equipment. As well as general automation technology equipment, electronic devices are also employed for contemporary information processing. The technical understanding of design and development is nurtured during laboratory and measurement exercises at large working sites, and practical tasks as well as technical evaluation are guaranteed elements of the course.
Workshops, electronic and EDP labs etc. are always equipped with the latest state-of-the-art technology. The location of Graz as a university and industry centre means that when necessary, these laboratory resources are used in conjunction with the Technical University and Karl Franzens University.
6.) The challenges of a process of “humanizing the workplace” are incorporated into the syllabus of the University Degree Programme for working professionals.
The professors and teaching staff of the University Degree Programme for working professionals act as role models though an assured and value-based level of teaching. The didactic structure of the teaching sessions focuses on the needs and interests of the students. Small groups enable learning within a flexible timeframe, whilst allowing individual areas of interest to be taken into consideration.
Personal further education opportunities available for professors and teaching staff not only include the fields of university didactics, but also communication science modules, the use of multimedia equipment and techniques and modern analysis and evaluation methods. Frequent pedagogical conferences ensure continuous discussion of problems arising for the students of the Degree Programme.
7.) Parts of the Degree Programme are offered on a distance-study basis in order to encourage modern communication using electronic media and so as to enhance the students’ independence.
The professors and teaching staff of the University Degree Programme for working professionals use modern media, develop the modules that are on offer, and organize periods of self-study. Information is provided in the form of hard copies, EDP media and via the internet. Communication is both asynchronous and synchronous.
The technical equipment in the University Degree Programmes’ facilities enables all students to have access to the internet and to the internal data of the Degree Programme. Almost 75 percent of the students have a PC and internet connection at home, which means that periods of distance study, on a reasonable scale, can be increasingly conducted using an e-learning system.