Anne-Kathrin Bestgen

This paper presents a modular evaluation questionnaire designed to assess Knowledge and Technology Transfer (KT) events in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). KT is central to the HEI’s third mission, contributing to societal and economic progress. This mandate is critically highlighted by the need to disseminate digitalization competencies in rapidly evolving fields, notably immersive technologies—including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR)—which are foundational for virtual worlds. Traditionally, transfer success relies on overall outcome indicators (patents, collaborations), which fail to capture the immediate impact of individual transfer events. Our questionnaire addresses this gap by evaluating event-level success and its alignment with the target groups: companies, citizens, and students. Developed via expert workshops in the context of virtual worlds, the tool’s modular design supports flexible adaptation and broad applicability across different event types. It captures participant reactions, knowledge acquisition, and behavioral intentions, along with process items. This provides immediate, actionable insights into event success, enabling HEIs to optimize resource allocation and make informed adjustments tailored to audience needs. Future studies should validate the questionnaire’s psychometric properties and assess long-term effects. Ultimately, this tool strengthens the capacity of HEIs to optimize transfer activities and cultivate stronger partnerships.

Map legends are key elements of thematic maps and cartographic communication. The question of how to style map legends is a topic which has often been addressed by cartographic academics and practitioners. Nevertheless, the question of where to position a map legend has only hardly been discussed. Principles of cognitive sciences allow the assumption that a legend positioned to the right of a map field can be read and decoded faster than a legend on the left side. This study investigates the impact of legend positioning on legend decoding. It involves an experiment based on a recognition memory paradigm and the registration of eye-movements. The results show that, in less time, a legend positioned to the right of the map field (compared to a left legend) can be decoded faster. The same accuracy of a cognitive representation of geographic space can be achieved in spatial memory.