RESEARCH

The Department on a Conference Trip to Linz

09/08/2026

The Chair in Enterprise Computing will present two recent research papers at the 21st International Conference Wirtschaftsinformatik, to be held September 7–10, 2026, at Johannes Kepler University Linz. Alexander van der Staay will participate in the Doctoral Consortium in the days leading up to the conference.

The Chair of Enterprise Computing is pleased to participate in the 21st International Conference Wirtschaftsinformatik at Johannes Kepler University Linz in Austria. The conference takes place from September 7 to 10, 2026, and offers a central platform for academic exchange on current developments, challenges, and innovations in information systems.

The International Conference Wirtschaftsinformatik is one of the most important conferences in this field in the German-speaking world. It brings together researchers and practitioners to discuss current research findings, new methodological approaches, and insights relevant to professional practice.

Through the presentation of two research papers, the chair will present its current research to an international audience of experts, thereby contributing to the academic discourse in information systems.

Already on the weekend before the conference, Alexander van der Staay participated in the Doctoral Consortium (DC). The Doctoral Consortium offers doctoral candidates the opportunity to discuss their research projects with experienced scholars and other early-career researchers and to receive valuable feedback for their future academic work.

Further information about the conference can be found on the WI 2026 website.

Here are the papers we presented:

van der Staay, A., Stahmann, P., Speckmann, P., Nebel, M., Ciftci, S. A., Janiesch, C. (2026). “The Tone Makes All the Difference: Shaping Student Mental Models of LLM Thought Partners.”
The paper examines how students perceive and use Large Language Models as “thought partners” in mathematics learning. In a qualitative study, two differently designed variants of an LLM-based learning partner were compared: a passive-neutral and an active-supportive approach. The results show that both students’ prior experiences with LLMs and the system’s linguistic design influence their expectations, their attributions of willingness to cooperate, and their interaction behavior. Based on this, the paper derives important design principles for the use of LLMs in educational contexts, particularly with regard to framing and expectation management.
Ciftci, S. A., Janiesch, C. (2026). “Patterns of Trust: Process Patterns for Configurable Data Trustee Architectures.”
The paper develops modular process patterns for designing configurable data trustee architectures. Data trustees play a key mediating role in data ecosystems by enabling legally compliant and sovereign data exchange between data providers and data users. Based on a design-science-research approach, complex processes—from authorization to secure data retrieval—are broken down into reusable service components. The resulting framework provides a flexibly adaptable blueprint for transparent data trust architecture that can accommodate diverse business requirements and evolving regulatory frameworks.