Potsdam. A new six-week online course offered by the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) shows how business processes can be accurately depicted, described and analyzed in graphical models. The MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) is taught in English and starts April 11 on openHPI, the interactive education platform of HPI. The course is organized by Prof. Mathias Weske and his teaching team of the Business Process Technology research group at HPI. It is designed for students and professionals in administration, quality management, system architecture and software development. Register at: https://open.hpi.de/courses/bpm2016.

"Business processes are depicted in concrete models which are often the basis for improving processes and decisions," Weske explained. According to the Potsdam computer scientist, the "Business Process Model and Notation" (BPMN) method, which provides standardized symbols and rules for representing process models, is seen as the industry standard and will play a central role in his course. "We want to give users the foundations and practical techniques to represent business processes and decisions as well as to implement the models in practice," said Weske.

His team had already offered a course in business process models on openHPI in 2013 with an enrollment of more than 15,000 online learners. This year, the HPI scientists will also address the topic of "Decision Modeling". "Operational decisions are essential for the quality of the business processes, but were largely ignored in modeling until recently", Weske outlines. In the current online course he would therefore also present the new "Decision Model and Notation" (DMN) standard which allows for a uniform representation of decisions.

openHPI has been offering its free open-access online courses on subjects of information technology since September 2012. In the meantime, at openHPI there have been over 267,000 course registrations from more than 117,000 users who come from around 150 countries. More than 35,000 certificates have already been issued for successful participation. All of the online courses that have been offered at the platform so far—in German, English, and Chinese—are also available anytime in the archive mode (without exam and certificate).

The Internet learning platform openHPI is unique worldwide with the concentration of its content on information technology and computer science and with its course offering in German, English, and Chinese. In contrast to “traditional“ lecture portals, courses at openHPI.de follow a fixed six-week syllabus with a defined set of educational content, such as instructional videos, texts, self-tests, regular homework and exam questions. These offerings are combined with a forum where participants have the opportunity to interact with course instructors and fellow learners, getting answers to questions and discussing topics in depth.

The Hasso Plattner Institute for Software Systems Engineering GmbH (https://hpi.de), at the University of Potsdam, is Germany’s university excellence center for IT-Systems Engineering. HPI is the only university institution in Germany offering the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in “ITSystems Engineering”—a practical and engineering-oriented alternative to conventional computer science studies. Current enrollment is at approximately 480 students. The HPI School of Design Thinking is Europe’s first innovation school for university students. It is based on the Stanford model of the d.school and offers 240 places annually for a supplementary course of study. There are a total of twelve HPI professors and over 50 guest professors, lecturers and contracted teachers at the Institute. HPI carries out research noted for its high standard of excellence in its eleven topic areas. Research work is also conducted at the Potsdam HPI Research School for PhD candidates as well as at its branches in Cape Town, Haifa and Nanjing. HPI teaching and research focuses on the foundation and application of largescale, highly complex and distributed IT systems. The development and exploration of user-driven innovations for all sectors of life is an additional area of importance. HPI always earns the highest positions in the CHE university ranking.