General remarks
This is an examination-only term. There are no lectures in the winter term 2026/2027. You prepare on your own and sit an oral examination.
The course is taught in the summer term. The winter term offers the examination only, so there are no classes, no weekly sessions, and no in-class exercises.
The lecture notes from the summer term 2026 are the study material and the reference for everything you will be asked in the examination. You are expected to work through them independently:
- Introduction: what emerging technologies are, the process of emergence, and the five attributes that characterize them
- Multimodality and Immersion (
H1) - Intelligence and Affection (
H2) - Interconnectedness and Distributivity (
H3) - Mobility and Ubiquity (
H4)
Alongside the notes, Suh & Prophet (2018) and Dellermann et al. (2019) are the two core readings; both are referenced throughout the units.
Learning objectives
During this course, you should advance your skills in the following areas:
- understanding of the key characteristics of emerging technologies in general, the process and phases of technology emergence, as well as specific characteristics of emerging information technologies/digital technologies,
- knowledge of fields of application of current merging digital technologies, their impact on (information) systems used by individuals, organizations, and society, as well as media
- understanding of potentials and risks for individuals, economies and societies,
- communication of conclusions and the underlying knowledge,
- and social and ethical responsibilities in uncertain and ambiguous contexts.
Effort
You will gain 5 ECTS for this course. This equals approx. 150 hours workload, of which you need most to pass the course. Because there are no classes, the whole workload is self-directed:
- Working through the lecture notes of the summer term 2026 (approx. 50 hours)
- Researching your assigned technology and preparing the slides (approx. 80 hours)
- Consolidating the theory for the Q&A (approx. 20 hours)
Reserve enough time to study the lecture notes and prepare your presentation (see Table 1 for the dates).
Examination
Graded will be your introduction to an assigned emerging digital technology in a short presentation of approx. 8 minutes, and your ability to answer theory-based questions in a Q&A of approx. 8 minutes.
The examination has two parts. First you introduce your assigned technology so that the audience gains a solid understanding of it. Afterwards I ask you questions about the emergent nature of that technology and about the four hypotheses discussed in the lecture notes, which you answer in theory-based terms.
The Q&A carries the larger share of the grade. Details see here.
Schedule
There are no lectures to attend, so the dates below are the only fixed points. Plan your self-study and slide preparation backwards from the upload deadline.
| Date | Topic | Preparation |
|---|---|---|
| Throughout | No lectures in the winter term 2026/2027 | Self-study of the summer term 2026 lecture notes |
| 06.01.2027 | Deadline: Slides Upload | Slides (.pptx and .pdf) |
| 20.01.2027, 14:00 | Oral Examination (E5.1.09) | Emergence and all four hypotheses |
The examination session starts at 14:00 and runs until approximately 16:30. Individual time slots will be announced via Moodle.