The Online Access Act (OZG) aims to make the administrative services of the federal and state governments user-friendly, digital and centrally accessible. The law came into force in 2017. Under the OZG, the federal and state governments are obliged to offer their administrative services electronically and to link their administrative portals on the federal portal verwaltung.bund.de.

Public administration services are also to be made accessible at European level. To achieve this, the European Parliament and the European Council adopted the Single Digital Gateway (SGD) Regulation in 2018, establishing the “Your Europe” portal as the central contact point for public administration services across Europe.

Implementation of the OZG at KIT

The digitalization coordinator focused on OZG supports the implementation of OZG requirements at KIT. One of her key tasks is to highlight the relevance of OZG for KIT and to consolidate corresponding OZG developments within the KIT administration. This is done in close collaboration with other digitization coordinators of universities in Baden-Württemberg.

Networking and digitalization of public administration in the education sector

The Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community (BMI) has developed a digitization strategy to meet the OZG requirements and the EU’s Single Digital Gateway requirements. This strategy includes a strategic partnership between the federal government and the states, known as the “digitization tandem” or “department-state tandem.” In the field of education, the state of Saxony-Anhalt, with support from the leading federal ministry BMBF, is developing digital solutions for the services outlined in the OZG.

To digitize and centralize administrative processes nationwide on a single portal, universities across various federal states have networked together. They address the strategic challenges of digitization at universities collaboratively under the  “one-for-all” (EfA) principle.

Joint implementation in Baden-Württemberg

In Baden-Württemberg, the state’s nine universities have established a joint institution “Kooperationsunterstützung bwUni.digital” with the support of the MWK. Among other initiatives, this institution helps universities jointly implement OZG requirements through the  bwOZG project, avoiding isolated solutions.

Nationwide, administrative processes are characterized by federal structures. While federalism promotes diversity and strengthens state autonomy, it also poses a significant challenge for digital transformation in Germany. The 16 federal states and 11,000 municipalities, each with extensive decision-making authority, operate different and often parallel administrative services and processes under their respective state laws.

Thus, a fundamental task for any digitization project in this context is to avoid redundant IT infrastructures. Instead, nationwide standards for uniform data, laws, responsibilities, and terms or parameters need to be established. One of the biggest challenges in the federally organized administrations of German universities is harmonizing existing data.