History

The foundation of erp4students lies within the broad experience of the chair of Information Systems for Production and Operations Management (WIP) at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany: The chair of Prof. Dr. Heimo H. Adelsberger is mainly responsible for the development of the courses. Professor Adelsberger’s teaching experience in the area of integrated information systems goes back more than 30 years: He was professor for „Computer Science and Industrial Engineering“ at Texas A&M University, professor for „Datamatintegrerede Informations-systemer“ at the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen, and for 20 years professor and chair for „Information Systems for Production and Operations Management“ at the University of Duisburg-Essen. The Chair has been one of the first who used SAP-software in teaching on a regular basis (starting in the mid-nineties); SAP-software related topics have since been the focus of bachelor and master theses. Today, many previous students work for SAP SE or are consultants in the ERP field.

The experience of Professor Adelsberger’s chair lead to the e-learning-based study program VAWI (Virtueller Weiterbildungsstudiengang Wirtschaftsinformatik) developed between 2001 and 2004. After setting up a course curriculum and choosing innovative and collaborative education approaches, VAWI was established as the first internet-based advanced education program at the Universities of Duisburg-Essen and Bamberg. With currently about 500 students VAWI is the most successful internet-based university masters program in the German-speaking world.

Due to students’ demands the first trial run of an SAP course was made in 2006 as part of VAWI. The students’ feedback exceeded all expectations. From there on out erp4students has been developed further and further. Today, students from over 100 nations can participate in the courses. The course program consits of 13 German courses, 9 of which are available in English. To this day, thousands of students have gained an SAP certification thanks to erp4students.

In 2019 a close cooperation with the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences was started. Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences was also one of the pioneering educational institutions to use SAP software in their teaching. Thanks to the experiences of Professor Franz, erp4students is given new opportunities in the context of SAP education.

Professor Franz worked as Development Manager at SAP for many years, focusing on education, development and sales. In 2004 he transferred to Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences. Mister Franz is responsible for business applications in informatics at the Chair of Economics. Professor Franz’s chair realised multiple innovative and successful projects in the area of SAP. For example: 

• for 18 years the Berlin-Brandenburg SAP-Forum
• SAP Next-Gen project with the grid company Berlin-Brandenburg (NBB)
• student teams at InnoJams at TechEd in Berlin, Madrid and CeBIT in Hanover.
• global train-the-trainer courses in Greece, Turkey, VAE, Saudi-Arabia, Spain and Hungary.