On June 6, 2025, Til Jeschkowski successfully defended his master's thesis on “Development and Prototypical Implementation of a Multi-Device Operating Concept for Collaborative Modeling on Tabletop.” Til is a master's student in business informatics and was supervised by Anne Gutschmidt and Benjamin Nast (both employees of the Chair of Business Informatics).

Abstract

Collaborative modeling plays a central role in business analysis and process optimization. In addition to traditional methods, multi-touch tables are used for this purpose, enabling teams to work together on business models such as target and problem models. However, one challenge in using such a tool is the limited workspace, which can be restrictive for more extensive modeling projects. To overcome this limitation, this thesis investigates the development and prototypical implementation of a multi-device operating concept that enables the use of smartphones as an extension of the workspace. The implementation of this concept is expected to enable users to create model components individually on mobile devices and integrate them efficiently into a shared model. This should increase both idea generation and user flexibility. In addition, the aim is for this approach to minimize potential conflicts and promote structured collaboration. The thesis hopes to demonstrate and evaluate these advantages by testing the developed solutions using a prototype and examining the functional and non-functional requirements.