Is a printed university magazine still relevant today? OTH Regensburg 2024 posed this very question in the editorial of the latest issue of SPEKTRUM and answered it with a curt “No!”. The magazine had been published for 35 years. From October, the university will continue to share its stories online via the blogazine ‘Discover OTH Regensburg’.
“A digital magazine would essentially be the old magazine – just on a screen,” says Prof. Dr Ralph Schneider, President of OTH Regensburg. “But we specifically didn’t want a PDF with a page-turning function. We wanted a digital format that really thinks digitally.”
The blogazine is structured like a blog, freely accessible on the university’s website, and links articles to videos and social media content. For each topic, the editorial team decides how best to present it: as text, a photo gallery, a video or a mix of all three. Three sections set the tone; it is no coincidence that their initial letters spell out ‘OTH’. ‘Opportunities’ focuses on people and their journeys at the university, ‘Tomorrow’ on applied research, and ‘Horizons’ on international partnerships and collaboration with the region. The blogazine is not intended to be a news portal, nor a noticeboard. Rather than focusing on the latest news or event reviews, it concentrates on topics that remain relevant beyond the here and now.
From South Carolina to the robot at the Kumpfmühl weekly market
Some stories are exclusive to the blogazine. One article uses the example of paving to show what artificial intelligence has to offer the skilled trades. Two students from OTH Regensburg talk about their semester at Clemson University in South Carolina, with which the university has been collaborating for around ten years. Another article takes us to Schwandorf, where OTH Regensburg, together with OTH Amberg-Weiden and the district administration, is establishing a technology campus for the circular economy and sustainability. The campus does not yet have its own building. Nevertheless, five externally funded projects are already underway, and the first final-year projects have been completed in collaboration with local businesses.
You may already be familiar with some of the other topics from the university’s news updates. The blogazine covers them in greater depth, providing background information and details: the trial with acrylic fibres along a 280-metre stretch of the A99 motorway, the start-up team whose child protection app is supported by professional footballer Manuel Neuer, and the social robot Navel at the Kumpfmühl weekly market.
And what do you hope readers will take away from it? “That they’ll say: ‘Wow, all this is happening at OTH Regensburg?’ That’s exactly the reaction I’m hoping for,” says Prof. Dr Schneider.
The blogazine is available at www.oth-regensburg.de/discover.
