As already announced, coactum GmbH has now taken over the further development, support and operation of the successful PINGO application. The project initiated by the Chair of Business Informatics at Paderborn University will now be turned into a permanent service.

What exactly is different?

The most noticeable changes are probably a slight adaptation of the colors to the corporate design of coactum and the change of address where PINGO can now be reached: Instead of pingo.uni-paderborn.de, it is now called pingo.coactum.de, and the mail address of the support  also changes and is now called pingo-support@coactum.de. The old mail address remains the same for the time being, but ideally you should now use the new address. Surveys that you have already created will also remain available at the old address – users will then automatically be forwarded to the new address. Here, too, we recommend a change to the new address, especially because users might otherwise be surprised about the forwarding.

Apart from that, nothing changes.

Privacy and Imprint

Since instead of the University of Paderborn, a company (by the way a spin-off from the University) is now responsible for PINGO, some of the general conditions are also changing. You will find our contact address in the imprint; the data protection declaration naturally complies with the GDPR. We are committed to the principle of data minimization and therefore store as little data as possible. For survey participants, we only store the usual data in log files and delete them within seven days. We also store three cookies: a session cookie, a cookie with a voting number that can be used to prevent multiple votes, and a cookie that determines whether PINGO’s desktop or mobile display is used. Of course, for users who can create polls, we need the credentials. That is: Name, organization and department, email address and password. Optionally, you can specify for which events PINGO is to be used. All this data is stored exclusively on our servers, which are operated by Netcup in Nuremberg. We do not transmit any data to third parties. All details can be found in the privacy statement.

Users of Paderborn University

In agreement with the IMT, the computer center of Paderborn University, there will be an separate PINGO server exclusively for users of the university in the near future. Data migration will ensure a seamless resumption of work.

Perspectives

PINGO will continue to be free to use and we continue to develop it further. But now that there is a company behind PINGO, there are new opportunities if you want to use PINGO as a school, university or company. You can get your own installation with hosting and support from us. Such an installation can then also be connected to your existing infrastructure, e.g. through Office add-ons or integration into a learning platform (e.g. through a Moodle plug-in). PINGO can also be adapted to your needs – be it in terms of design or functionality. Since PINGO is an open source software, function enhancements are also available to other users. If you are interested in using your own PINGO platform for your university or company, please contact us at pingo-support@coactum.de.