This learning platform is an offshoot of the social learning network openHPI, which was launched 2012 in Germany. With its approximately 100,000 registered users, openHPI has participants from more than 114 countries. Interactive courses are offered on current topics of information technology.
Chinese now joins the languages used at present: German and English. The first online course offered will be conducted by HPI founder Prof. Hasso Plattner, co-founder and Chairperson of the Supervisory Board of the software giant SAP AG. The course offers an introduction to the subject of the revolutionary main memory database technology known as In-Memory Data Management. All learning materials, such as lectures, self-tests, homework and exams, are available in Chinese; the English learning videos have Chinese subtitles.
“The Hasso Plattner Institute is pleased to not only be a pioneer of free, openly accessible online courses in information technology in Germany, but now also in the People’s Republic of China,” said Meinel. All of the positive experiences that HPI has made in the past 18 months with its worldwide introduction of “Massive Open Online Courses” (MOOCs) in German and English can now also benefit interested learners in China. The open.HPI.cn servers are at Guofu Data Cloud Computing in Shanghai, where SAP Labs is responsible for the support of Chinese participants in their native language. The learning materials are also translated there into Chinese.
Leading scientists, business people and diplomatic representatives took part in the ceremony that launched openHPI.cn. According to HPI director Meinel, Chinese online learners in all parts of the country will now be offered better technical quality, than if they accessed the openHPI server in Germany. “I’m sure that our successfully functioning model will generate strong momentum for the offer of online courses in this populous country,” said the Potsdam computer scientist.
Background of the Relationship Between HPI and China
The Potsdam Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) has a close and cooperative relationship with China that goes back to a partnership in the field of tele-teaching, i.e., e-learning. Since October 29, 2002, Prof. Christoph Meinel, who has served as HPI’s director since 2004, has been giving English-language lectures for Chinese students as a German professor. Meinel’s tele-teaching, which has focused on topics of Internet security, began initially at the University of Trier. It was at this time that the People’s Republic of China first made it possible for their students to take part in live online lectures at a foreign university - writing a piece of scientific history at the same time.
On September 20, 1987, China first became connected to the Internet with the assistance of Germany. The first e-mail sent from Beijing via Karlsruhe into the wide world read: “Across the Great Wall we can reach every corner in the world.”
One of the pioneers of the Internet, Werner Zorn, who had been a professor for information technology in Karlsruhe, had played a decisive role in “pulling the strings,” just as he had three years earlier in getting Germany connected to the Internet precursor CSNET.
Zorn held the Chair of Communication Systems at the Hasso Plattner Institute from 2001 until his retirement in 2007. He was awarded the German Federal Order of Merit in 2006 in honor of his work as one of the fathers of the German Internet.
In November 2011, Hasso Plattner Institute founded a branch of the HPI Research School at Nanjing University. At the 60-member HPI Research School, currently eight Chinese PhD candidates, working under the supervision of their professors, contribute research findings to the topic of “Mass Data Analytics and Knowledge Discovery.“
HPI and the computer scientists at Shanghai University regularly conduct Sino – Chinese workshops on cloud computing. Furthermore, the Potsdam Institute - which has run Europe’s first innovation school for university students since 2007 - works in close cooperation with the Communication University of China (CUC) in training the innovation method “Design Thinking.”
Profile of Hasso Plattner Institute
The Hasso Plattner Institute for Software Systems Engineering GmbH (HPI) in Potsdam is Germany’s university excellence center for IT Systems Engineering. It is the only university institution in Germany offering the bachelor and master program in “IT Systems Engineering” – a practical and engineering-oriented study program in computer science, in which 470 students are presently enrolled. The HPI School of Design Thinking is Europe’s first innovation school and modeled on the Stanford d.school. It offers 240 places yearly for a supplementary study. There are a total of ten HPI professors and over 50 guest professors, lecturers and contracted teachers at the Institute. HPI carries out research noted for its high standard of excellence in its nine topic areas, as well as at the HPI Research School for PhD candidates, with its further branches in Cape Town, Haifa and Nanjing. HPI teaching and research focuses on the foundation and application of large-scale, highly complex and networked IT systems. The development and exploration of user-driven innovations for all areas of life is an additional field of importance. HPI always earns the highest positions in the CHE university ranking. Since the beginning of September 2012, HPI has offered openhpi.de, an interactive Internet educational platform. Its free online courses are open to everyone.
