Results of the survey on software solutions at German universities from the ZKI working group for Strategy and Organization 2021

At present, the ZKI does not yet have an overview of which software solutions are used how frequently at the member institutions. The aim of this survey is therefore to gain a better picture of the solutions in use and to create a helpful means of comparison for many institutions by querying particularly central systems.

The survey was answered by 89 universities. Up to 83 responses were given for the individual categories of software solutions. Participation in the survey was possible from 20.4.2021 to 21.5.2021.

The survey asked about the following categories:

• Backup Software
• Campus Management Systems - CaMS
• Content Management Systems - CMS
• Chat / Instant Messaging Solutions - IM
• Document Management Systems - DMS
• Research Information System - FIS
• Calendar
• Learning Management Systems - LMS
• Private Cloud / VM Management
• Project Management Software
• Resource Management Systems
• Sync-n-Share solutions
• Ticket / Incident Management Systems
• Video management systems
• Video conferencing solutions
• Knowledge Management Solutions

For each category, the following questions were asked:

• Which solution do you use?
• Is the system commercial, open source, homegrown, or hybrid?
• How do you operate the system? Internally, externally or mixed?
• How satisfied are you with the solution? (Scale from 1 - very dissatisfied to 10 - very satisfied)
• What comments do you have?

In addition, the survey asked about type of institution of higher education, state, and number of students at the institution.