Ideen der Informatik

Ideen der Informatik

Organisational:

- Successful completion of the course will give you 5 ECTS. The course consists of a weekly 90-min lecture, a weekly voluntary assignment and a final written exam. We are open for all students not enrolled in a study program at the Computer Science department.
- It takes place on Fridays, 8-10am c.t., in E1.7 R.301, starting on October 16th, 2026, ending February 5th, 2027. We encourage in-person participation, however, we will both stream and record the lectures, if you cannot attend physically.
- Here the Microsoft Teams link for the lecture.
- Recordings and all other content will be made available via CMS.
- Course language is English.
- Lectures consists of two parts: First 30-min discussion of last week's assignment. The remaining 60-min new input. A week's assignment builds on previous weeks input.
- The assignments are voluntary, thus not graded. We offer students to provide individual feedback on their assignments. We expect students who use this offer not to hand in LLM-generated answers.
- The final exam is in-person, date tbd. However, we also offer remote exams on request. More on remote exams below.

Contents and goals:

Three goals:

• Familiarize the audience with basic concepts in Computer Science: What is an algorithm? What is a computer? What is data?
• Understand the interplay between information systems and society: How does technology transform society? How can technology be used to measure societal changes?
• Gain enough knowledge to critically discuss various impacts of information systems on the society.

We address following topics: history of computer science, algorithms, programming languages, technical concepts of data centres, search engines, large language models, cryptography, networks, block chains, security and privacy and societal impacts. A detailed curriculum will be added soon.

We do not expect any prior knowledge about these topics. However, we highly welcome critical thinking and active involvement in the discussions.

Key deadlines (all end of day, German local time):
- CMS registration deadline: 23.10.2026
- LSF registration (if applicable): 13.11.2026

Please check with your study coordinator, if other deadlines specific to your program apply.

We are very much looking forward to meeting you,
Ingmar & Till