There’s a Martin Luther Playmobile figure and a Martin Luther noodle. It’s hard to escape the reformer’s face during the 2017 jubilee year. But what does the Reformation have to do with the present day? A lot, say researchers from many disciplines at the University of Halle. Because the Reformation’s legacy extends far beyond that of theology. Read more
Did the people in Ethiopia take refuge in the mountains during the last great ice age 16,000 years ago? An international team of soil scientists, archaeologists and biologists are conducting research on this as part of a new project entitled “The Mountain Exile Hypothesis”. To do this, soil scientists from Halle will be traveling to the remote Sanetti Plateau to examine the soil there and use modern biogeochemical methods to look for traces of mankind that are thousands of years old. Read more
Crickets chirp at the edge of the forest, otherwise all is quiet in the Nature Park Saale Unstrut Triasland. Nine students from the University of Halle are working intently despite the midday heat. It is their last day in the field and there is still a lot left to do. In the master’s module Outdoor Ecology the up-and-coming biologists are learning what it means to conduct fieldwork in four investigation areas near Freyburg. Read more
When a country has access to oil reserves, this goes hand in hand with unimaginable wealth, right? Chad is one of the poorest countries in the world. Since 2003 oil has been produced in this central African state. For twelve years, ethnologist Dr Andrea Behrends has been onsite examining how its society and culture have been changed by oil production. Read more
Not only are research data and scientific publications often freely accessible online, today a lot of teaching and learning material can also be found on the Internet – in the form of textbooks, videos, entire online courses, and worksheets. The term “open educational resources” (OER) was first used in 2002 to refer to any teaching and learning resources that were in the public domain, free to use, or which could be developed or changed under an open licence agreement. Read more
Regardless of whether they are old photos or town records, historical data is the basis for conducting research at the Institute of History. But what needs to be taken into account when working with and digitalising data? Budding historian Dr Katrin Moeller advises in this area. Read more
A major part of bioinformatics research would be limited or impossible without open access databases. Researchers at the University of Halle intensively utilise public datasets and, in return, provide the community with their own findings. Read more
The open access movement began 15 years ago. Prof. Stephan Feller, a molecular biologist, and Dr. Stefan Artmann, a private lecturer in philosophy, discuss how it will change science in 2016 and the opportunities and challenges that will arise as a result of its development into an open exchange of specialist publications. It is a topic that occupies both men. Feller is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of the Open Access Journal “Cell Communication and Signalling”. Artmann, who heads up the presidential office at the Leopoldina, is a member of the working group “Open Access”, part of the priority initiative “Digital Information” of the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany. Read more
Winter semester saw classes start up on the Steintor Campus for the first time. The campus is Halle University’s fourth largest after University Square, the Francke Foundations and Weinberg Campus with its nearby hospital. The idea of concentrating all of the humanities and social sciences departments in one location has been 15 years in the making. Read more
