KD²Ex (KIT - University of Excellence)
As part of the KIT Excellence University concept "The Research University in the Helmholtz Association | Living the Change", the "KIT Future Fields" initiative specifically supports KIT scientists in pursuing highly innovative and risky projects in the disciplines that promise scientific breakthroughs. An interdisciplinary team was formed and has received funding for the KD²Ex as part of a one-time Future Fields special call for investments. This will enable new forms of experimental research: Digital Citizen Science in the area of "Wellbeing at Home".
The strategic goal with this funding is to build a trusted ecosystem for empirical experimental research in the lab and in the field (KD²Ex). The nucleus of this ecosystem is the DFG-funded Karlsruhe Decision & Design Lab (KD²Lab). KD²Ex will provide a unique infrastructure that enables new forms of experimental research in the sense of Digital Citizen Science. Individual citizens as well as citizen groups (e.g. households) will be enabled to actively participate in research. KD²Ex includes public infrastructure such as assembly booths and terminals, household infrastructure including neurophysiological devices as well as software (e.g. digital participation platform). Thematically, the initial focus will be on the research field of "Wellbeing at Home" from a work and education perspective, a highly relevant topic during the Corona crisis and beyond.
Within this project, a study is conducted that examines everyday working life. The number of cyber-attacks has increased since the Corona-related shutdown. At the same time, many employees are less well protected from these attacks at home, which has many reasons. On the one hand, the fear of becoming a victim of such an attack is increasing, while at the same time workers lack both awareness-raising measures and tools to help them recognise these attacks. It is important that the measures and tools are efficient and effective and significantly increase the workers' sense of security. In the context of this study, the efficiency, effectiveness and the increase in self-efficacy in everyday work for selected available awareness-raising measures and tools are therefore measured over a longer period of time. At the same time, the digital participation platform enables a debate on experiences with the measures and tools in order to derive suggestions for improvement measures.
Funding body: KIT - University of Excellence, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kundst (MWK)
Partners: Prof. Christof Weinhardt (IISM), Prof. Alexander Mädche (IISM), Prof. Petra Nieken (IBU), Prof. Benjamin Scheibehenne (IISM), Prof. Nora Szech (ECON), and Prof. Alexander Woll (IfSS)
Funding period: 01.01.2021 - 30.06.2022
Contact: Christopher Beckmann, Peter Mayer, Melanie Volkamer