Geoinformatics with an ethical focus

At the Academy Evening of the Academy for Responsible Research, Teaching and Innovation (ARRTI), the staff of the Geodetic Institute Prof. Dr. Martin Breunig and Dr.-Ing. Paul Vincent Kuper were recently invited to present ARRTI co-teaching in the Bachelor's/Master's degree courses “Geodesy and Geoinformatics” (GuG) and in the international Master's degree course “Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics” (RSGI). Students from eleven countries are currently enrolled on the latter. The cooperation between ARRTI and the GuG courses was initiated by Dr.-Ing. Michael Mayer, representative for innovative teaching at the Geodetic Institute (GIK).

In the successful pilot project, various co-teaching sessions were successfully carried out in compulsory courses in Bachelor's courses (seminar in the 4th semester and lectures and exercises in the 3rd and 5th semesters) and in the Master's course (1st and 2nd semesters). Through his visits to courses, Dr. Simon Derpmann from ARRTI introduced the students to ethical aspects of their course content in his keynote speeches “Fundamentals of Geoethics”, “Geoethics and AI” and “Ethical Concerns in the Use of Generative AI”. The students thanked him for his great commitment with lively discussions, particularly on the ethical aspects of AI and LLMs. This current cooperation benefited from the commitment of (former) ARRTI members/associates Prof. Dr. Michael Kühler, Dr. phil. Elisabeth Does, Dr. Giovanni Frigo and Dr. Michael Schmidt, who were actively involved in shaping the cooperation in previous semesters.

In his lecture at the KIT Guest Lecturers' House, Prof. Breunig emphasized the importance of ARRTI for the KIT. It depends on the cooperation between ARRTI and the specialist disciplines, which the latter cannot achieve alone. The continuation of co-teaching is indispensable in order to be able to place ethical aspects at the center of teaching and learning in the future. This requires a continuation of ARRTI, as he emphasized in the presence of KIT Vice President Research, Teaching and Academic Affairs Prof. Dr. Oliver Kraft