After the workshops in Berlin 1995, in Munich 1996, and in Würzburg 1997, this year`s workshop took place in Hamburg from 16 - 18 of March with approximately 180 participants. The workshop was greatly enriched by the participation of guests from USA, Australia, and the UK.

This year`s workshop was organized by the German Society for Educational Research (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaften -DGfE-) as a pre-conference to the DGfE-Media-Congress in the University Hamburg.

Important conclusions from the workshop are

• The IuK-Cooperation of the learned societies plays an increasingly important role in building up an integrated information-and communication culture in Germany.
• In its conferences, it provides for the exchange of experience, conceptions, strategies and possible solutions.
• It provides a forum for the international interchange of ideas.
• It provides a wide range of ideas for the participating learned societies and for a general public consisting of scholars/ scientists, librarians, documentalists and persons active in education administration.
• It supports coordination between the learned societies, libraries, and professional information providers.
• It supports Global-Info substantially and encourages the formation of new supporting programmes.
• It generates considerable synergy-effects.
• The participants of the workshop applauded the speakers for their interesting state-of-the-art-reports (see programme [3]).
• The 1999 Workshop will take place in Jena and is to be organized by the German Society for Physics (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft DPG).

At the end of the meeting the speakers of the individual societies presented the following aims for future tasks of the IuK-Initiative:

Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung DMV (German Society of Mathematicians):

Speaker Prof. Grötschel

The next goals of the society will be the extension of distributed open systems like "Math-Net-Project", which shall create a "Digital Information Service for the Mathematicians" and the improvement of existing systems; further the development and design of tools for the production of Metadata (Harvest, Gatherer), and the development of uniform "Secondary Hompages" for all German mathematical faculties as navigation site for own presentation additionally to such homepages, which are in general use at the universities)

Efforts will be necessary to unite existing differing opinions and views in the wide spread mathematical landscape.

Further reports will be given at the Conference of Mathematical Faculties in May 1998 and in the summer 1998 at the International Mathematicians` Congress.

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie DGS (German Society for Sociology):

Speaker Prof. Schmiede

The Society plans to develop a "Conception of a Social Science-Net" using a similar approach as in the physics and the mathematics projects of the learned societies. For instance the "Math-Net-Project" has the aim to create a digital Information Service for the mathematicians in German universities (supported by the "Deutsches Forschungsnetz"-DFN-).

The German Society of sociologists plans a similar project, also supported by the "Deutsches Forschungsnetz" (DFN), to create the basic of a "Communication-Infrastructure of Sociology".

Co-operation with the Society of Social Science in UK is currently under discussion.

Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft DPG (German Society for Physics):

Speaker Dr. Bischoff

The society is engaged in several projects. Among these are the EPRINT-Project, the development of search engines, and the new IuK-Project "Electronic journals".

Especially important is the continued development of the EPRINT-Project, supported by the "Deutsches Forschungsnetz"-DFN-, which started in 1991. It is a fully automated electronic archive and distribution system for preprints in physics and related subject areas, based on an analogous project of the U.S. National Science Foundation with the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Current project partners are Darmstadt, Halle, Augsburg, Oldenburg.

Gesellschaft für Informatik GI (German Society for Computer Science):

Speaker Prof. Fellner

The next goals of the Society will be testing and evaluation the MeDoc-Service and new MeDoc-licencing models within the project "Interdoc - interdisciplinary documents". Currently 45 users will be included.

Similar to the "Math-Net-Project", which shall create a Digital Information Service for the mathematicians, a corresponding layout for the "Computer Science" shall be developed.

The international activities are concentrated on the expansion of co-operation with Cornell University, Ithaca, USA. Cornell has established the NCSTRL-Project (Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library).

Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker GDCh (German Society for Chemistry):

No report.

Verband Deutscher Biologen VDBiol (German Association of Biologists):

Speaker Dr. Bowman

The interests of the German biologists are represented in 40 societies. Therefore it is very important to organize a co-operation between them. A special programme does not exist, but 3 tasks are:

• Improvement of information in the faculties by establishment of an "Information Officer" for the individual faculty or subject area (" Fachinformations-Beauftragter";
• Introduction to and training in the use of relevant databases for scientists;
• Access to Web-Resources for biologists, currently a prototype search engine, called "Biofinder" is being developed.

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie DGPs (German Society for Psychology):

No report.

Fachgesellschaft für Elektroingenieurwesen (ITG-VDE) (Society of German Electrical Engineering):

Speaker Thomas Kamps

Currently the Society has the aim to inform their members about the goals of the Information and Communication Initiative (IuK) and about the Global-Info activities.

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaften DGfE (German Society for Educational Research):

Speakers Mrs. Prof. Lohmann and Mrs. Dr. Rusch-Feja

The Society is concentrating on such projects like the initiative "Schulen an das Netz" (Schools in networks), the development of the "Deutscher Bildungsserver" (DBS -"German Educational Resources"-), and the further integration of multimedia into information and communication processes. It will generate the integrated Institutionen- und Personendatenbank der Erziehungswissenschaften in Deutschland. Already considered is and highly desirable is increased elctronic intercourse between educational systems and mass media.

It is expected that the DGfE-Media-Congress in the University Hamburg with 1.500 participants, which began at the same time as this final meeting of the IuK, will increase the interest and involvement in using IuK in the field of education in Germany.

Interesting URLs:

[1] http://elfikom.physik.uni-oldenburg.de/IuK/

[2] http://elfikom.physik.uni-oldenburg.de/IuK/iuk-hh.html

[3] http://elfikom.physik.uni-oldenburg.de/IuK/iuk-hh-engl.html

Dr. Karin Bocek, UB der TU Chemnitz, 29.03.1998