Materna University Partnership: A Day at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts

In a joint guest lecture, four members of staff from Materna gave Business Informatics students an insight into their day-to-day work and, at the same time, into a topic that plays a key role in many organisations today. The focus was on the practical implementation of ITIL, or the Information Technology Infrastructure Library. This set of best practices for IT Service Management (ITSM) focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of organisations.

During the lecture, the Materna team placed particular emphasis on actively involving the students. By using Mentimeter, they created an interactive learning environment that went beyond simply listening. Bastian Wilde, who works in the XMS BMC team at Materna and was present at the event, explains: “We didn’t want the students to simply sit through a three-hour lecture, then go home thinking they’d just got through another lecture. We wanted them to feel involved and have fun.”

From theory to practice

In a practical exercise following the lecture, the Materna team provided the participants with a BMC system. This enabled them to apply the ITIL processes they’d learnt about directly within a tool. The students created tickets via BMC’s Digital Workplace and then processed them in Smart IT, another BMC tool. “In doing so, they also had to make decisions within the BMC environment, based on the information from the lecture, in order to solve the problems presented,” reports Bastian.

Given the positive feedback from the lecturer and the course participants, we have planned to organise a similar event again next year. “However, we’re taking a longer-term approach for next time,” says Bastian Wilde. “Instead of a three-hour session, we’d like to set a task spanning several weeks, during which we’ll support the students. This will allow us to engage more closely with them and generate even more enthusiasm for our company.”

On our website, students can find further information about the opportunities Materna offers, ranging from work placements to job vacancies.