Introducing iiRDS to universities

Ralf Robers, president of the iiRDS Consortium and head of the documentation department at Körber Supply Chain Logistics GmbH, introduced iiRDS to university teachers. The event was the kick-off for an exchange between the consortium and universities for closer cooperation on the topic of intelligent information for use.

About iiRDS

iiRDS stands for intelligent information Request and Delivery Standard. The iiRDS Consortium consists of 26 members who are driving the standard forward as service providers, tool manufacturers or industrial companies and who are dedicated to information for use as part of digital business models. The Consortium looks forward to adding universities among its membership in the near future.

Ralf introduced iiRDS and navigated the participants through the changes in the users and authors perspective as well as the changes in content creation process and the consequences for technical communication like the growing importance of the semantic net. "With iiRDS we have a really good starting point for creating knowledge graphs."

By using iiRDS, companies can enrich and link information sources. The core metadata, which is available for free download at iirds.org, was visualized by Ralf. The standardization that iiRDS provides refers to standardized metadata and a standardized delivery format (RDF). The iiRDS Consortium took part in and Industry 4.0 InterOpera projects this year to develop a submodel of the Asset Administration Shell. The AAS is the basis for interoperability and is the digital twin of a machine or plant. Digital twin data in the administration shell describes the product of the physical world in the information world. So “iiRDS is a big piece of the future that we want to share with as many people as possible in the digital era”.

Next steps of iiRDS in university collaboration

The presentation was followed by questions and an exchange of ideas how iiRDS could be integrated in universities. It quickly became clear that the needs differed due to the individual course structures at each university. Therefore, the iiRDS Office is planning an individual exchange, but also a continuation of a group exchange to promote iiRDS at universities.

The iiRDS Consortium offers to organize guest lectures to present iiRDS either at the interested university or as an online lecture. In addition, an iiRDS sub-working group is to be established, in which consortium members and universities will participate and drive the exchange. Meetings could be held monthly or every other month. Active participation in the working group would be a prerequisite for free membership in the consortium for the respective university. Universities and students can not only participate and help shape the exchange of expertise here, but they also gain access and contacts to companies, e.g. for final theses. The iiRDS Consortium considers opening the iiRDS Online Training to a limited number of dedicated university staff or students for free participation in 2024.

If you are attending tcworld conference in Stuttgart, join us in the meet-up room on Tuesday, November 14 at 4:30 p.m. for a follow-up discussion and first meeting of the university collaboration sub-working group.

The iiRDS Consortium is open for ideas and interested universities are welcome to contact Susanne Lohmüller at the iiRDS Office.