On April 27 and 28, 2023, the BMBF final meeting of the announcement “Human-Technology Interaction for Digital Sovereignty” (DISO) took place in Hamburg. A-DigiKomp was represented with all project partners. The project members Jennifer Klütsch (RWTH Aachen) and Malin Sweers (SGS) presented the project and the demonstrator of the serious game. Jennifer Klütsch (RWTH Aachen) also represented A-DigiKomp in the subsequent panel discussion, where new challenges and funding opportunities for the future were discussed and contributed to.
Exciting insights into the numerous research projects of the funding line and discussions about future research and technology resulted.
Thanks to the organizers and we look forward to seeing what the future holds!
On February 14, 2023, all consortium partners in our A-DigiKomp project came together for the final meeting at RWTH Aachen. Based on the fascinating results and updates of the last half year, lively discussions and new ideas emerged. As within the previous status meeting, all project partners presented reviews of their work and provided exciting previews for the remaining months of the project. We are looking forward to what awaits us in the remaining months and would like to thank all project partners for their great contributions and insights.
We are pleased to announce that one of our studies on Dark Patterns in cookie privacy decisions will be published as peer-reviewed publication. The results were presented and discussed at the International Symposium on Technikpsychologie in Darmstadt on 15.02.23.
On 01.12.2022 we started analyzing the data of our vignette study. First analyses of our phishing study already show interesting results, that we hope to share with the scientific community soon.
On 30.11.2022 we completed the data collection for our vignette study. We thank all our participants and supporters! With your help we reached over 500 teenagers & young adults with an average age of 22 years.
Whether we are downloading an app, scrolling through Instagram or LinkedIn, we are all confronted with digital media every day. In doing so, we as users should be encouraged in our digital self-determination to make informed privacy decisions, for example. But what are the current challenges of digital self-determination and how can we shape future solutions?
In order to discuss these current topics, the Digital Autonomy Hub (DAH) organized a web event on 23.11.2022 on the topic of “Data literacy and protection against algorithm-based discrimination – limits and possibilities of digital self-determination”. In addition to politicians, civil society and other scientists, project members Jennifer Klütsch and Christian Böffel presented the A-DigiKomp project and discussed practical implications.
The first in-person status meeting of A-DigiKomp took place on 20.09.2022 in Cologne. The Döpfer University of Applied Sciences invited all consortium partners to the metropolis on the Rhine and organized a first personal meeting with interesting updates, exciting discussions and promising ideas. As usual, all project partners gave a review of the work of the past half year as well as an outlook on upcoming projects. Further collaborations were explored and plans for new publication were made. We would like to thank our hosts for the fantastic organization and hope that the next meeting will also take place live and in-person!
After determining the technical requirements for the digital assistant, imc AG designed a functional and technical concept for it. Implementation was carried out as a browser plugin based on the performance support system IMC Process Guide.
Browser plugin with data security notice on the YouTube website.
The browser plugin was developed for the most popular browsers Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge and extends them with context-sensitive features to improve digital literacy. The plugin’s pop-up window (shown on the right) opens as soon as a supported webpage is accessed in the browser and shows users relevant risks and appropriate action options. While the risks list possible dangers of the website, the action options help young people with practical measures to minimize these risks. The instructions were developed from various guides and recommendations from online service providers and consumer protection actors so that they can be carried out step-by-step by users.
Further developments of the browser plugin for 2022 mainly concern the individual use and improvement of the tool. For example, the registration process is to be improved, enabling plug-in users to use the digital assistant individually on a voluntary basis. Registered users who have consented to the processing of their data will be granted access to their own usage data and how it is used. Based on their experiences and activities in the serious game and the browser plugin, an individual competence profile can be calculated and displayed for the young people. In this way, users can be optimally supported by tailored recommendations of learning content. The preparation of further learning offers that address the respective risk areas in more detail is one of the development goals for 2022. In addition, efforts are being made to set up an infrastructure that allows young people to use both Serious Game and Browser Plugin in an uncomplicated manner.
On May 12, 2022, another networking event of the BMBF funding measure “”Human-Technology Interaction for Digital Sovereignty”” took place. Here, the project consortia of the Digital Autonomy Hub came together and reported on the latest developments in their projects. And of course, A-Digikomp took part as well. Christian Böffel (RWTH Aachen) presented the current project status on behalf of the consortium leadership and participated in the subsequent plenary discussion with Stefan Hoffmann (Serious Games Solutions). All participants were able to gain helpful impressions and suggestions in an exciting exchange with other projects. The focus were the three topics “Playful approaches to learning”, “Using health data in a determined way” and “Visualizing data protection”.
In A-DigiKomp, a large vignette-based survey study on the cognitive and developmental mechanisms of actions and decision-making in digital environments is being rolled out. On 22.04.2022, the second workshop of the collaborative partners RWTH and HSD featuring the required methods and material took place. The results of the discussion will now be used for the final conceptual design of the vignette study.
