News
Result of Main Exam and InspectionWritten on 05.10.26 by Andreas Schmidt Dear SCS students, The results of the main exam are now available on your personal status page in the dCMS and you will also be able to see the total points and the points you scored per exam exercise. You will further find your grade there. There have been 47 participants. With at least 30… Read more Dear SCS students, The results of the main exam are now available on your personal status page in the dCMS and you will also be able to see the total points and the points you scored per exam exercise. You will further find your grade there. There have been 47 participants. With at least 30 points, the final exam is passed. This has been achieved by 11 participants. The highest score obtained is 57.5 out of 60. We observed the following maximum points per exam task:
You will have the chance to inspect the marking of your exam. This exam inspection will take place Thursday, October 15, 2026, from 09:45 to 10:45 in Room 528 of E1 3. Note that you must register for the inspection on your personal dCMS page. Inspecting your exam is only possible if you can show us your national ID card or passport AND your student ID when you come to the inspection. Kind regards, |
Main ExamWritten on 29.09.26 by Robin Ohs Dear SCS students, Tomorrow, on September 30, the main exam is going to take place. On your personal status page, you will now find the lecture hall and seat assigned to you. If we did not assign you a seat and you think this is an error, please notify us immediately. Dear SCS students, Tomorrow, on September 30, the main exam is going to take place. On your personal status page, you will now find the lecture hall and seat assigned to you. If we did not assign you a seat and you think this is an error, please notify us immediately. The exam will take around 60 minutes. Kind regards, |
Last Day of SCSWritten on 23.09.26 by Robin Ohs Dear SCS students, Tomorrow will be the last day of SCS. Again, the schedule will be a little different from usual: In the morning, we will have a slack office hour at 09:45, back in our seminar room SR016. Feel free to drop by and ask us anything about the course. In the afternoon, at 13:00,… Read more Dear SCS students, Tomorrow will be the last day of SCS. Again, the schedule will be a little different from usual: In the morning, we will have a slack office hour at 09:45, back in our seminar room SR016. Feel free to drop by and ask us anything about the course. In the afternoon, at 13:00, we will have a short final concluding lecture, followed by another Q&A session so you can clear up any remaining questions before the exam. We hope to see many of you tomorrow! Best regards, |
Guest Lectures ReminderWritten on 22.09.26 by Robin Ohs Dear SCS students, Tomorrow we will have two guest lectures: one by Romain Jacob from ETH Zurich on Sustainable Networking at 09:45, and one on Sustainable Space, held jointly with the Space Informatics course, at 13:00. Both lectures will take place in E1 3, HS001. Furthermore, please read… Read more Dear SCS students, Tomorrow we will have two guest lectures: one by Romain Jacob from ETH Zurich on Sustainable Networking at 09:45, and one on Sustainable Space, held jointly with the Space Informatics course, at 13:00. Both lectures will take place in E1 3, HS001. Furthermore, please read the Satellite 101 section in the coursebook beforehand, as it provides useful background for the Sustainable Space lecture. We look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow! Best regards, |
U09: Guest Lecture tomorrowWritten on 17.09.26 by Andreas Schmidt Dear SCS students, tomorrow, we will have Timo Hönig (professor at the Ruhr-University Bochum) with us. This will be an actual lecture, so no reading to be done before. But also: there will only be slides afterwards. So if you want to get the most out of it, including asking the lecturer: be there… Read more Dear SCS students, tomorrow, we will have Timo Hönig (professor at the Ruhr-University Bochum) with us. This will be an actual lecture, so no reading to be done before. But also: there will only be slides afterwards. So if you want to get the most out of it, including asking the lecturer: be there tomorrow morning at 09:45. Note on the room: We are in E1.3 HS001, because this one has good audio equipment. Regards, |
Change to office hour format and schedule irregularities aheadWritten on 15.09.26 (last change on 15.09.26) by Robin Ohs Dear SCS students, As announced in the plenum, due to the low demand for help during the office hours, we will switch to a more traditional office hour format starting tomorrow. You are still welcome to use the seminar room to work with your fellow students. However, if you want to interact with… Read more Dear SCS students, As announced in the plenum, due to the low demand for help during the office hours, we will switch to a more traditional office hour format starting tomorrow. You are still welcome to use the seminar room to work with your fellow students. However, if you want to interact with us, please come to office E1 3, room 534. It is on the 5th floor, reachable by elevator or more sustainably by the stairs. Also, because of the guest lectures, there will be irregularities in the schedule starting on Thursday. We remind you of these during the plenum. In any case, this is mirrored in the dCMS calendar. Best regards, |
U04: Guest in the Active PlenumWritten on 10.09.26 (last change on 10.09.26) by Robin Ohs Dear students, Tomorrow we will have Sophie Kolb from "Netzwerk Entwicklungspolitik im Saarland e.V." (what roughly translates to "Sustainable Development Network in Saarland") as a guest in the plenum. This is your chance to ask questions — including broader ones — about theoretical and political… Read more Dear students, Tomorrow we will have Sophie Kolb from "Netzwerk Entwicklungspolitik im Saarland e.V." (what roughly translates to "Sustainable Development Network in Saarland") as a guest in the plenum. This is your chance to ask questions — including broader ones — about theoretical and political problems of sustainability, which don't necessarily need to relate to computer science. Further, she co-authored U04 and can help you close potential gaps you have from reading the chapter. We hope to see many of you tomorrow. Best regards, |
Less than a Week until SCSWritten on 31.08.26 by Andreas Schmidt Dear SCS students, Less than one week are between all of us and the start of "Sustainable Computing Systems". We're excited about that and hope you are too. For now, the most important thing is that we start Mo, 07th September at 09:45 in E1.3 Lecture Hall 003. As we have gotten various… Read more Dear SCS students, Less than one week are between all of us and the start of "Sustainable Computing Systems". We're excited about that and hope you are too. For now, the most important thing is that we start Mo, 07th September at 09:45 in E1.3 Lecture Hall 003. As we have gotten various inquiries regarding presence requirements, here is some clarification: As of today, the only mandatory event to be present is the (re)examination. This gives you the maximum flexibility w.r.t. to other obligations like exams, internships, etc. At the same time, we are convinced that attending only this single event leaves you with a low likelihood of passing. Note that we do not record anything. You only get access to slides and best-effort notes from the plenum. Please mix and match our three presence formats (lecture, active plenum, and office hour) with self-study periods and asynchronous participation in the forum. You are students in higher semesters and we believe you can manage this and find good, individual solutions. Best regards and see you soon, |
Introduction
Computing is becoming an increasingly integral part of our lives. At the same time, information and communication technology (ICT) is currently responsible for 4% of global carbon emissions as well as other detrimental environmental impacts (water usage, electronic waste, …).
“Sustainable Computing Systems” (SCS) is a course designed to introduce computer science students to two things: a) environmental impacts of computing systems as well as b) approaches to reduce and mitigate these impacts.
(Preliminary) Curriculum
The course covers three major areas, giving you practical and theoretical knowledge to create, maintain, and advance sustainable computing systems, which are essential for today's world. We will answer the following questions (among others) in this course:
- Fundamentals of Sustainability
- What do we care about and why should you care?
- How do we get to sustainable action?
- General Sustainable Computing
- How do computing systems have an environmental impact?
- How are computing systems organized and where do these impacts happen?
- What are the important metrics? e.g. Time, Energy, Carbon, PUE, SCI, ...
- Practical Approaches to Make Computing Sustainable (Again)
- How can we make software development produce more sustainable software?
- How can we green AI and web applications?
- What has to change with respect to hardware?
- How can networked applications become more sustainable and what do we need from the operating system for that?
- How can I trade dependability for sustainability? Can I have a bit of both at the same time?
Organization
- Credit Points: 6 CP
- Audience: Students at any stage in their studies who want to know about computing's sustainability
- Passing Criteria: Written Exam
- Schedule:
- Presence Period: Mo, 7th until Fr, 25th September 2026 (three full weeks)
- Active Plenum:
- Every morning in E1.3 HS003 at 09:45 s.t. - 11:15
- Come with reading done and questions prepared - this is NOT a lecture, except for the very first slot.
- Office Hours:
- Every afternoon in E1.3 SR016 14:00 s.t. - 15:30
- Join an open space to work on the material, collaborate with others, and ask questions.
- Exam
- When? 30.09. at 14:00 s.t.
- How? Written. Allowed materials are pens and (to be confirmed) a pocket calculator.
- Material / Language:
- Material is in English and provided in the form of a web-based living coursebook (including code fragments, videos, etc.)
- Instructors and tutors speak German (gerne bei Problemen auf Deutsch Fragen stellen und Antworten bekommen)
- Requisites:
- No prior sustainability knowledge is needed.
- Elementary programming skills required (e.g., Programmierung 2 or comparable).