In this paper an agreed set of standards, procedures and guidelines on quality assurance for the emergent European Higher Education Area is presented. If this set is implemented, the procedures for the recognition of qualifications will be strengthened. The set has been divided in two groups: there are internal and external standards and guidelines. The internals should be implemented by higher education institutions and under their responsibility. The external standards and guidelines should be implemented by external agencies with the collaboration of the higher education institutions.
For the previous six years, under the auspices of the ``Stability Pact of South-Eastern Europe'' and DAAD, a joint project for developing a course in ``Software Engineering'' has been conducted. The intention of the project was to enable usage of shared materials for software engineering courses at a wide range of universities in participating countries. During school-year 2004/05, for the first time the same course, with the same case study, and the same assignments has been conducted at the Humboldt University Berlin, and the University of Novi Sad. In this paper, we share some of the experiences obtained through conducting the same course in the two school-years: 2004/05 and 2005/06.
One of the biggest challenges that higher learning institutions face today is to improve the quality of managerial decisions. The managerial decision making process becomes more complex as the complexity of educational entities increase. Educational institute seeks more efficient technology to better manage and support decision making procedures or assist them to set new strategies and plan for a better management of the current processes. One way to effectively address the challenges for improving the quality is to provide new knowledge related to the educational processes and entities to the managerial system. This knowledge can be extracted from historical and operational data that reside in the educational organization's databases using the techniques of data mining technology. Data mining techniques are analytical tools that can be used to extract meaningful knowledge from large data sets. This paper presents the capabilities of data mining in the context of higher educational system by i) proposing an analytical guideline for higher education institutions to enhance their current decision processes, and ii) applying data mining techniques to discover new explicit knowledge which could be useful for the decision making processes.
Informatics is currently being taught in high schools all over the world. In the Netherlands, where all students are expected to become computer literate in the lower grades of high school (Hulsen et al., 2005), it has been decided not to consider computer literacy as being part of Informatics. What, then, should be the content of the Informatics curriculum taught in the higher grades? What should be taught, how and to whom? How should students' achievements be assessed? The answers to these questions completely depend on defining what the objectives of teaching Informatics are. This case study will discuss these objectives, along with the content of the Dutch High School Informatics Curriculum, the experiences resulting from the initial implementation of this curriculum, including the setting in which Informatics presently finds itself, and in the course of this we will provide answers to the above questions.
Mathematical logic is a discipline used in sciences and humanities with different point of view. Although in tertiary level computer science education it has a solid place, it does not hold also for secondary level education. We present a heterogeneous study both theoretical based and empirically based which points out the key role of logic in computer science, computer science education and knowledge representation. We focus on the key contrast of semantics and syntax, the resolution principle as a leading inference technique (giving also interesting non-clausal generalization of the rule). Further we discuss the possibilities of inclusion the non-classical (many-valued) logics in education together with the original generalization of the non-clausal resolution rule into fuzzy logic. The last part describes partial results of the research concerning the secondary education in the Czech Republic especially in the mathematical logic field. The generalization of the presented ideas entails the article.
Biology has moved from a bench-based discipline to a bioinformational science in modern times but application of computational and analytical methods of informatics in it is still a problem for many researchers and students of biology. We suggest to integrate cost effective and practical combination of the real and the virtual laboratories into the undergraduate biological science curriculum. This laboratory work illustrates passive and active electrical properties of plant cell membranes while introducing basic principles of electrophysiological recording, data acquisition and analysis. As the object for investigation in this laboratory work large cells of starry stonewort (Nitellopsis obtusa) were used. The simple program for experiment control and express visualization of recorded data was developed. Experiment proposed in this paper is easy implemented with a minimum of laboratory equipment, materials and gives an experience of computerized biological experiment.
An exploratory study of students' engagement in online learning and knowledge building is presented in this paper. Learning in an online community, composed of students (pre-service teachers) and experts (experienced in-service schoolteachers and academics), is the study's primary focus. Students' interaction and knowledge discourse structures, arising from individual readings of academic papers and asynchronous collaboration with peers and experts, are investigated using social network and content analysis techniques. Additionally, several new measures for exploring structural-qualitative aspects of knowledge discourse are introduced. Analysis revealed several important trends. First, students' interaction was more intensive in forums where experienced teachers participated, rather than students only. Second, students' individual discourse structures in their postings were quite deep, knowledge-focussed and elaborated; while students' replies were short, usually focussed on specific idea and contained a substantial amount of non-cognitive information. Overall, it is argued that students were engaged with the individual and collaborative knowledge building in the online learning community. Practical implications of the study results for development of courses are discussed.
The paper examines the impact of ICT on students learning experiences and opportunities offered by virtual learning environment as an integral part of traditional learning environment in the experimental course ``Integration of information literacy skills into ESP programme'' at Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania). The experiment aimed at developing students' information literacy and social skills as the means for enhancement of learning with a particular attention towards foreign language competencies. The integrated information literacy course into ESP (English for specific purposes) syllabus addressed students' needs of information literacy skills striving for better performance and efficiency in academic studies. The focal points of the research presented in the paper are: a) students' attitudes towards the learning environment offered by software Moodle; b) information literacy knowledge and skills developed within and with the assistance of Moodle; c) enhancement of social communication and collaboration; d) the impact of information literacy course on ESP competencies in a complex learning environment.