About me (short version)

I am a freelance fullstack developer and research associate, teacher, server administrator, programmer and factotum at the Department for Digital Humanities, University of Cologne.

Since my time as a student assistant both at the computing centre cologne (RRZK) and the institute for historical-cultural information processing (Historisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Informationsverarbeitung / HKI), I have been trying to outrun the German scientific temporary contract law (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz / WissZeitVG). Let's see, maybe I'll get a permanent contract one day (hire me and / or buy me a coffee).

In the meantime, I mainly build wonderful web applications with Angular and good content management systems like ProcessWire.

In my research, I'm interested in reflecting manifestations of semiotics and semantics in source code and algorithms. I'm also researching media transformations in / through VR and AR in a very practical way in and through my lectures. Also I'm interested in the process of modelling, methods of cognitive mapping, computer vision and general game playing.

Teaching

In my courses I deal with basics of computer science and media informatics, basics of programming with object-oriented and functional programming languages, interactive storytelling in virtual and augmented reality, and artificial intelligence, primarily machine learning and computer vision.

A list of courses held is available after a short click:

@ University of Cologne (Since 2009)

@ University of Victoria, Canada

@ University of Lagos, Nigeria

Supervised Bachelor (BA) and Master (MA) Theses (a selection)

• Laura Pascale Berg (12/2021, BA): Erweiterung des digitalen Forschungsraumes um die dritte Dimension – Eine praxisfokussierte Evaluation des Zukunftspotentials der virtuellen Realität in den Digital Humanities
• Marvin Busch (11/2021, BA): Schlagrepräsentation und Schlagerkennung im Tischtennis mit Hilfe des CIDOC CRM und Künstlicher Intelligenz
• Thomas Schiffer (09/2021, MA): Benutzerzentrierte Softwareentwicklung im Rahmen agiler Methoden – eine Untersuchung der Anwendung von Dual-Track Agile im Unternehmen
• Julian Klink (07/2021, BA): Gamification als Motivationsstrategie – Funktion und Implementierung von Gamification in Kombination mit prozedural generierten Inhalten
• Ana Calotescu (06/2021, BA): Digitalisierung, Visualisierung und Kontextualisierung von Medienartefakten des frühen Films: Entwicklung eines Objektnetzwerks mit GrandStack
• Pia Eikmeyer (06/2021, BA): Fiktive Architektur – Objektivität und Realität hinsichtlich nie verwirklichter Bauwerke und digitaler Re-Kreationen
• Nina Eckertz (01/2021, BA): Convolutional Neural Networks – Die Zukunft der digitalen Makroanalyse von Bildern in der Kunstforschung
• Manuel Krosta (11/2020, BA): The Internet of Things – An Industry goes Web. Konzeption und Implementation eines volldynamischen Interfaces für den Einsatz im IoT
• Moritz Eßer (11/2020, BA): Objekterkennung durch Künstliche Intelligenz – Wie künstliche neuronale Netze transmediative Prozesse gestalten
• Benedikt Mildenberger (04/2020, MA): Indoor-Lokalisierung durch Convolutional Neural Networks unter Anwendung von Transfer Learning
• Max Sprenger (03/2019, BA): Virtuelle Realität als Therapieergänzung für periphere Nervenläsionen

Appointments

• Member of the Cologne Center for eHumanities
• Member of Digital Humanities im deutschsprachigen Raum (DHd)
• Member of the European Association of Digital Humanities (EADH)
• Member of the CIDOC-CRM Special Interest Group
• Member of the International Society for Intermedial Studies (ISIS)
• Member of the working group Digital Humanities Theorie – Theorie und Theoriebildung in den digitalen Geisteswissenschaften
• Member of the working group Research Software Engineering in den Digital Humanities (DH-RSE)

Selected Projects

I. Fun Projects / Playing around...

• KVB-barrierefrei
  Overview of current escalator and lift disruptions of Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe (KVB).
  Based on Vue.js and KVB's Open Data.
• PlaygroundLove
  Built this for my daughter and me in order to find some nice playgrounds wherever we are.
  Based on Angular, Leaflet, OpenStreetMap's Overpass API.
• Checklist for Dark Souls 3
  I developed a Checklist for Dark Souls 3 which let's you keep track of collected items, pyromancies, sorceries (...) in order to get Platinum a bit easier. Feel free to download the app via Google Play Store for free.
  Ionic / Angular

II. Projects, getting paid for

• Wissenschaftsforum zu Köln und Essen (2021)
  I built Wissenschaftsforum zu Köln und Essen.
  ProcessWire / Angular
• Kompakkt (since 2018)
  Together with Kai Niebes and Zoe Schubert, I developed Kompakkt, a multimedia object repository and annotation system.
  Angular / BabylonJS / MongoDB / Express.js
• Arachne, iDAI.field (2015-2017)
  At the German Archaeological Institute (DAI, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut), I worked on the central object database of the DAI Arachne / iDAI.objects and the field research documentation system iDAI field 2.
  AngularJS (Arachne), Angular (iDAI field), Electron
• VD18 (2009-2011)
  In the project "VD18 – Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 18. Jahrhunderts", I developed and implemented algorithms for determining the similarity of title recordings for the VD18 project as part of Prof. Manfred Thaller's database system "kleio".
  C++ / Python / sed / awk
• Digitales Archiv NRW (2011)
  In the project "Digitales Archiv NRW", I provided a feasibility study on transport encryption.
• PLANETS (2010)
  My sub-project in the context of the EU-co-funded project "PLANETS Preservation and Long-term access through Networked Services – Digital Preservation Research and Technology" was about implementing an application for automated pattern recognition in dynamic environments (computer- and videogames).
  You can find a paper about aspects of my work here.
  C++ / Qt

Publications

2019

• Zoe Schubert, Øyvind Eide, Enes Türkoglu, Jan Wieners (2019): The intangibility of Tangible Objects. Re-telling Artefact Stories through Annotations and 3D Replica. ICOM KYOTO 2019 – Museums as Cultural Hubs: the Future of Tradition.

2018

• Jan Wieners, Zoe Schubert, Øyvind Eide: Erkenntnisgewinn durch die individuelle Erfahrbarkeit von Daten und Information in interaktiven virtuellen Welten – Annotierte Bühnenmodelle in VR. EADH 2018: Data in Digital Humanities. Galway, Ireland.
• Zoe Schubert, Jan Wieners, Øyvind Eide: Modelling. Virtual. Realities. Virtual Reality as a transformative technology for the humanities. Intermedial Practice and Theory in Comparison (Hangzhou, 2018).
• Zoe Schubert, Jan Wieners, Øyvind Eide: Modellieren durch mediale Transformation: Das Theater Brechts in der virtuellen Realität. DHd 2018 Köln – Kritik der digitalen Vernunft. (Book of Abstracts)

2015

• Jan Wieners: SpoookyJS. Ein multiagentenbasiertes JavaScript-Framework zur flexiblen Implementation digitaler browserbasierter Brettspiele und spielübergreifender künstlicher Intelligenz. Dissertation, Universität zu Köln.
  Online available at http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/5971 or GitHub.

2010

• M. Guttenbrunner, A. Rauber, M. Thaller, J. Wieners: Same Same But Different – Comparing Rendering Environments for Interactive Digital Objects. In Ioannides, M. et. al.: Digital Heritage - Third International Conference, EuroMed 2010. Lemessos, Cyprus, November 8-13, 2010 Proceedings. Berlin 2010: Springer Verlag. (http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_190888.pdf)

2008

• Jan Wieners: Zur Erweiterungsfähigkeit bestehender OCR Verfahren auf den Bereich extrem früher Drucke. Magisterarbeit, Universität zu Köln (https://github.com/janwieners/TED)

Talks

2019

• Together with Sophie Schmidt: Lehre mal praktisch – Archäogaming.
  Ringvorlesung "Lehre mal praktisch", Zentrum für Hochschuldidaktik, Universität zu Köln, 09.05.2019.

2018

• Together with Zoe Schubert: Modellieren durch mediale Transformation. Colloquium in Digital Cultural Heritage, University of Cologne, 31.01.2018.

2017

• Don't Fear Black Boxes – Künstliche Intelligenz und Digital Humanities. Digital Humanities Kolloquium, Universität zu Köln, 25.10.2017.
• Together with Simone Kronenwett: Forschungsdaten in den Geisteswissenschaften. ZBIW-Fortbildung "Forschungsdatenmanagement im Überblick", Technische Hochschule Köln, 08.06.2017.

2016

• Together with Zoe Schubert: VR As a Transformative Technology in the Humanities. Colloquium in Digital Cultural Heritage, University of Cologne, 09.11.2016.

Workshops

2020

• Together with Zoe Schubert, Enes Türkoglu and Kai Niebes: Showtime – sehen und gesehen werden! Erzeugung semantischer (Spiel-)Räume für kollaboratives Arbeiten mit multimedialen Annotationen im Mehrdimensionalen. DHd2020 Paderborn.

Poster

2021

• Auditory Spaces: Sound als Gestaltungsmittel in VR und AR. DHCon2021, University of Cologne, Germany.

2020

• Together with Zoe Schubert, Enes Türkoǧlu, Kai Niebes and Øyvind Eide Niebes: Because the world is multidimensional: Annotations for storytelling with 3D objects. DH2020 Ottawa, Canada.
• Together with Jonathan Blumtritt, Brigitte Mathiak, Claes Neuefeind, Felix Rau, Philip Schildkamp and Patrick Helling: Geisteswissenschaftliches Forschungsdatenmanagement in der Lehre - Konzepte, Methoden, Erfahrungen. DHd2020 Paderborn, Germany.
• Media Transformation – Interaktives Erzählen in VR: "Barn Burning" (Haruki Murakami, Lee Chang-dong). DHCon2020, University of Cologne, Germany.
• Kompakkt. DHCon2020, University of Cologne, Germany.

2019

• Media Transformation – Interaktives Erzählen in VR. DHCon2019, University of Cologne.

2018

• Together with Andreas Gálffy and Simone Kronenwett: Die Macht der Daten- vom konsequenten Umgang mit Forschungsdaten.
  @ DHd2018 at the University of Cologne, Germany

Curriculum vitae

Professional experience

• 01-2018 - now
  PostDoc, research associate, lecturer and software developer at the Department for Digital Humanities, University of Cologne.
• Since 2005 working part-time as a freelance web- and software-developer.
• 08/2015 - 12/2017
  Software-developer at the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Berlin).
• 10/2010 - 04/2016 "Lecturer" IT-Zertifikat der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität zu Köln
  Courses about:
  • Client- and server-side web development with HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and MySQL.
  • Web- and app-development for mobile devices based on the frameworks Bootstrap, jQuery Mobile and AngularJS, focusing questions and interests of digital humanities.
  • Technologies and metadata standards in libraries, archives and museums: XML, DTD, XML Schema, XPath and XSLT, Dublin Core, TEI, METS/MODS, etc. etc.
• 01/2009 - 12/2011
  Research Assistant in the project "VD18 – Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 18. Jahrhunderts", Institute for Historisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Informationsverarbeitung, University of Cologne
  Topic: Development and implementation of an algorithm for determining the similarity of title recordings.
• 10/2011 - 12/2011
  Research Assistant in the project "Digitales Archiv NRW", Institute for Historisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Informationsverarbeitung, University of Cologne
  Topic: Feasibility study on transport encryption.
• 03/2010 - 05/2010
  Research Assistant in the project "PLANETS Preservation and Long-term access through Networked Services – Digital Preservation Research and Technology", Institute for Historisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Informationsverarbeitung, University of Cologne.
  Topic: Implementation of an application for automated pattern recognition in dynamic environments (computer- and Videogames).
• 09/2004 - 12/2008
  Student Assistant at the Regional Computing Centre (RRZK, Regionales Rechenzentrum Köln).
• 05/2005 - 12/2008
  Student Assistant at the Institute for Historisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Informationsverarbeitung (Applied Computer Science for the Humanities) at the University of Cologne.

Education

• February 2015
  PhD (Dr. phil.) in Digital Humanities at University of Cologne, Germany.
  Thesis: "SpoookyJS – Ein multiagentenbasiertes JavaScript-Framework zur flexiblen Implementation digitaler browserbasierter Brettspiele und spielübergreifender künstlicher Intelligenz"
  Homepage: https://www.spoookyjs.de
  GitHub: https://github.com/janwieners/SpoookyJS
  Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Manfred Thaller
  Grade: summa cum laude
• 2002 - 2009
  Study of Philosophy, German language and literature and applied computer science for the humanities (Historisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Informationsverarbeitung) at the University of Cologne, Germany.
  Master's thesis (Magisterarbeit): "Zur Erweiterungsfähigkeit bestehender OCR Verfahren auf den Bereich extrem früher Drucke“ (https://github.com/janwieners/TED)
  Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Manfred Thaller
• 2000 - 2002
  Civilian Service at the Zentrum für Frühbehandlung und Frühförderung gGmbH Köln Mülheim
• 1997 - 2000
  Training as electrotechnical assistant at Werner-von-Siemens Berufskolleg, Cologne Deutz.

Contact