Andreas Starke, Mayor of the City of Bamberg visited the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) on August, 4th, 2011. He gathered information on the structure and aims of the longitudinal study as well as on the data editing and usage.
He still remembers the building at Wilhelmsplatz 3 very well since he had had a holiday job at the post office as a pupil, said Bamberg´s Mayor Andreas Starke during his visit at NEPS on August 4th, 2011. In the former Wilhelmspost, the Executive Director of Research, Dr. Jutta von Maurice, informed the municipal leader of Bamberg about the largest educational study so far which is internationally unique. “The National Educational Panel Study is of great importance for Bamberg and for the whole region. It is remarkable what is being achieved here”, Andreas Starke said.
One station of the short tour through the building has been the users’ training room where Knut Wenzig, research assistant of the NEPS user service, explained how the gathered and anonymized data is edited and made available for the international scientific community. Bamberg´s Mayor was impressed by the so called Remote Access Technology. In this process, the user logs on to the system via an innovative and highly secure biometrical authentication program and an individual password. After this unambiguous identification, the user can analyze the data provided in the most recent version within a comfortable working environment at any time.
It is obvious for Andreas Starke that this project deserves every support. “People in and around Bamberg need to know what an important project is located here – and hopefully will continue for a long time."