A.Yu. Philippovich,

Ass. Professor of the MSTU named after Bauman

“Information Processing and Control Systems”Chair

Situational Centers in Education

All over the world more and more attention is given to the questions of change and improvement of educational system. For the effective and complex decision of administrative problems such as improvement of management quality in educational sphere, an operative response to changes of need for experts, introduction of new forms of training, etc., is required the use of modern administrative technologies. The situational centers concern to their number (SC) which are represented with set of program-technical means, scientifically-mathematical methods and engineering decisions for automation of processes of display, modeling, the analysis of situations and management [see the Situational centers: definitions, structure and classification // PCWeek/RE N26 (392), 15-21July,2003.

Application of SC is expedient for management of complex organizational-technical systems and the decision of the challenges demanding the analysis of a large amount of interconnected and often incomplete data. In educational sphere the use of SC accepts following basic forms: SC of the state educational authority, teaching SC branch, Interuniversity SC, the Center of strategic management of educational institution, Educational SC.

The situational Center of the state educational authority

Now for the Ministry of education and science of the Russian Federation and its branches (federal agencies, departments of education, etc.) a number of projects on creation of the situational centers which are at stages of conceptual designing, researches, development of technical and economic assessments and experimental use of separate components is conducted. Planned SCs are called to provide a new quality of management with sphere of education at the expense of use of the complex approach and the most modern information technologies.

The Federal Center of the Situational Analysis (FCSA). The mainstreams of the activity of SC are traditional problems of the given class of systems, and namely: modeling of probable situations, the forecast and formation of their scripts, multiple strategic planning and support of decision-making. It is supposed, that SC will cooperate with systems of the account of employment of graduates of educational institutions (for example, Automatic Control System HIGH SCHOOL) and specialized systems used in the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Labour as well as control information system with the educational sphere on key parameters of activity.

Information and analytical control system in educational sphere on key parameters of activity. The basic directions of SC activity are: planning of parameters, monitoring of activity in sphere of educational management, analytics, and the administrative account and the reporting, correction of deflection. The system, alongside with FCSA, can be used for strategic and an operative branch administration. It is supposed, that SC will cooperate with all other information systems of the Ministry of education and science and get data from regional and high school data sources.

Besides central (federal) SC, it is also supposed to create a network of regional SCs which are intended for decrease of risk of management errors, increase of efficiency of accepted decisions on management of education in a region, increase in labour productivity of employees of educational authorities in regions.

Regional tasks include monitoring of regional educational institutions (financial maintenance, personnel maintenance, pupils, libraries, information equipment, etc.); the organization of administrative document circulation; the follow-up action of the accepted decisions; interaction with regional information and analytical systems of regional authorities (SC, created within the frame of " Electronic Russia").

SC of monitoring of educational sphere. It is possible to divide SC into two sub-systems: information system of monitoring and statistics, and analytical information system for monitoring of social security processes in educational sphere. The purpose of the first subsystem is gathering of actual data about educational activity on places and their transferring to a branch control system on key strategic parameters, and also to information systems of a state statistics complex.

The second subsystem is an analytical decision-making supporting tool in social security sphere of education employees. The system provides for gathering of necessary data for the analysis (including during interaction with register of employees in educational sphere and other components of united educational information system) and data presentation in various analytical cuts.

Listed SCs are created (are planned to create) within the frames of the federal target program of development of the united educational information system (FTPDUEIS) and its "successors". Separate SCs supplement each other when they are together and they can be a basis for creation of integrated situational center of the Ministry of education and science of the Russian Federation both on federal, and on regional levels.

The teaching branch situational center

Nowadays the questions of training, retraining and raising the level of staff’s skill in the organizations and the state structures are becoming extremely actual. Principal causes of higher interest to educational processes are deficiency of experts and serious changes in corporate culture and managements. For example, actively introduced management by KPI (Key Performance Indicator) with the use of the system of the balance scorecard BSC (Balance Scorecard) considers the problems of the staff’s training as one of the four basic aspects defining internal processes of the company and influencing mutual relation with clients and financial results.

One of the modern lines in the field of education is a full transfer of the specialized branch educational institutes under the control of the appropriate ministries and departments. In this connection the maintenance the whole sphere with the staff (training, raising the level of staff’s skill, retraining, etc.) is becoming their key problem.

An introduction of the management processes in the educational sphere and its strategic planning in existing or created SCs of the large state and commercial structures is perspective and effective. The necessity of the integration is precisely traced for the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Emergency Measures, the Ministry of Railways, etc. The description of the example of the decision of this problem for polygraphic branch is presented in my monography " Integration of systems of situational, imitating and expert modelling. " [М.: " Elix+ Open Company " Publishing house, 2003. – 300].

The interuniversity situational center

Historically in Russia there was a developed interuniversity system of teaching and methodical associations, which determine the structure and the maintenance of education in the past in everything, and today in many respects. In an existing situation when an active reforming of educational system is going on, the convergence with international approaches when large IT-companies apply for a defining role in a vision of the development in the educational area, a problem is sharply facing a preservation of advantages of a domestic engineering school.

A creation of effective tools of management, modeling and forecasting of consequences of accepted decisions which will allow reducing a quantity of rash and badly worked up actions is necessary for this purpose. The decision of such a problem from the theoretical and scientifically-practical side is possible only within the limits of the high school environment where an enormous experience and full understanding of specificity of educational branch is saved up.

 

SC of management and development of the engineering education.

The approaches of transition to a new paradigm of management by means of SC and researches on creation of analytical systems of support of decision-making are carried out in MSTU named after N. E. Bauman. One of the results of this activity is the development of SC concepts on management and development of the engineering education (DEE SC) and SC on monitoring and co-ordination of processes of integration of the Russian engineering education into the world educational space.

SC on managements and developments of the engineering education (DEE SC). DEE SC is intended for the automation of processes of the centralized management, development and perfection of the engineering education. One of the key components of the SC is a subsystem of quality assurance of the maintenance of the maximum and postgraduate professional engineering education: structure of educational programs, training and methodical maintenance, a hardware, etc.

The second key component of the DEE SC is a subsystem of coordination of actions of the scientific and pedagogical public of high schools, representatives of the enterprises, establishments and the organizations for maintenance of high-quality education, improvement of professional skill of the teaching corps, an estimation and development of requirements to competence, qualification of prepared experts, need from manufacture and sphere of services.

DEE SC should provide an opportunity of integration of resources and automation of the transfer processes of the information streams between the federal council, the coordination councils on fields of knowledge and cycles of disciplines, scientific and methodical council, training and methodical associations and incoming training and educational councils and commissions.

SC of monitoring and coordination of integration progresses of the Russian engineering education in the world educational space (SC REE-WES). Nowadays a lot of steps directed to integration of a domestic education system in the world educational space is undertaken in Russia. A priority direction in this area is the affiliation of Russia into Bologna process (the European educational space) which demands the decision of such primary goals as a creation of the national credit system, maintenance of students’ and teachers’ mobility, a coordination of educational programs and diplomas.

MSTU named after N. E. Bauman performs researches directed to the situational analysis and development of effective approaches to the use of new educational technologies at the domestic engineering school. Carried out researches have allowed revealing some basic problems which are required using of powerful analytical systems.

Students’ mobility. In the Europe (in all territory of EU) students’ mobility makes more than 750 thousand person annually. This number which already now in three or four times exceeds number, for example, of the Italian army, constantly increases due to occurrence of the new countries of the East Europe, non-uniformity of distribution of capacities, decrease in the average prices for education and set of other factors.

Opening of student's borders of mobility in Russia will lead to a necessity of monitoring and moving control of hundreds thousand foreign and domestic representatives of "students’ army ", armed by " the intellectual weapon " and modern information technologies.

The special approach is demanded with the decision of student's mobility problem in the east of our country where there is a problem of an attenuation of the educational and intellectual resources at mass emigration and assimilation of representatives of the Asian and Pacific region.

The European and east educational spaces. The European educational space (Bologna process) opposes to the American one and actively developing east education in competitive struggle. Despite on the current priority of the Bologna process, the development of interaction with the UMAP organization (University mobility in Asia and Pacific region) is not less important.

At the decision of the controllable mobility problem the Asian region can serve as a basic "donor" for development for educational services in the east part of Russia. Besides a high concentration of capacities in the Asian region and an active cooperation will allow to keep and develop (unlike the Europe where the return tendency is observed) a natural-science and technological component of a domestic production and engineering education.

The balance support between the European and east educational spaces, modeling and forecasting of the situational development are the major problems.

The coordination of credit weights. For maintenance of students’ mobility within the limits of the Bologna process, UMAP organization, universities of the USA credit transfer systems ECTS (Europe Credit Transfer System \Scheme), UCTS (UMAP Credit Transfer System \Scheme), USCS (US Credit System) are used accordingly. A credit weight (a credit estimation, capacity) of the discipline show its labour input and depth of studying. As a rule, credit weights of disciplines coordinate only within the limits of one specialty (direction) of a concrete high school (faculty). Such a local definition can appear inefficient.

For example, for the studying " The theory of formal languages " (ТFL) essentially more expenses can be demanded for the students at a linguistic university, than at a technical college where there is a strengthened mathematical preparation. As a result the quantity of credits for ТFL at a linguistic high school will be given more, than at a technical one.

It is only possible to coordinate credit weights of disciplines for the whole territory of the educational space (Russia) in the centralized way. The initial definition of basic credit weights at a level of state educational standards (SES), and comparison to each region, high school, faculty, speciality or even a teacher of the certain factors changing basic weight can be the effective mechanism of the sanction of this problem . All set of factors can be presented in a form of one-dimensional or multivariate " credit matrix ".

Industrial orders for preparation of experts. The credit system can be used as a mechanism for formation and mediate display of needs for the manufacture and the sphere of services. It is necessary to carry out the monitoring and revealing of needs for experts, their qualifying characteristics and to carry out modifying of credit matrixes factors for this purpose.

For example, it is necessary to satisfy the need for IT-experts for the city of Dubna and to raise the priority of appropriate engineering specialities. For this purpose, matrixes of demanded specialities and disciplines in the specified region change by increase in local factors.

Of course, it is impossible to solve a problem of students’ and teachers’ relocation (for example, from Novosibirsk to Dubna) with this mechanism; however with other things being equal this approach can appear effective.

A dynamic change of credit matrixes and modeling of consequences of changes can be demanded at transition to credit-modular system of training. An operative revealing of new needs and reaction demands using of productive electronic computer complexes.

Accumulated credits. In connection with the development of the concept of continuous training (Long Life Learning), transition to modular technologies of studying and payments of training it is actual to use Credit Accumulation System. Accumulated systems, which USCS and ECA (Europe Credit Accumulation) are related to, allow to form own credit-profile "passports" which reflect knowledge, skills, skills and the competence acquired by the user.

It is necessary to create specialized storehouses of the data and analytical systems for maintenance of the centralized storage and change of data (by analogy with the results of UST), and also the analysis of existing credit-profile "passports" of the engineering staff and the most demanded disciplines.

Other problems. Besides the main problems there are a lot of additional ones which demand the decision by means of modern automation facilities: transition to two forms of accreditation APL (in an educational institution) and APEL (at manufacture), the control or performance of separate functions of accreditation agencies, creation of conditions for reduction of outflow of the staff, monitoring of foreign educational programs and their comparison with domestic ones, support of balance between already developed national engineering school and new educational technologies.

Purpose of SC REE-WES subsystems. SC is intended for the analysis, control, and modeling of integration processes of engineering education in the world educational space (particularly, Bologna process). It is possible to allocate three basic functional subsystems within the SC limits.

The coordination subsystem is intended for the centralized storage, calculation and updating of credit matrixes of regions, engineering high schools, specialities, etc. depending on needs of the state, the industry and a social and economic situation in the country.

The monitoring subsystem is intended for the analysis of a situation of engineering education development in the united European educational space, the Asian and Pacific region for coordination of student and teaching mobility, and also prevention of outflow of the staff.

The development subsystem is intended for harmonization of processes of the affiliation into the European and world educational space and maintenance of continuous improvement of the quality of the domestic engineering education.

 

General structure SC REE.

SC and SC REE WES are created in MSTU named after N. E. Bauman at support of the training and methodical commission on "Information technologies in education" specialty of the high professional training. SC REE WES can be considered as a component (an international contour) of SC REE or as a separate independent system, called to provide the decision a number of the general problems by means of the new technologies offered by the western education systems, and some additional problems.

Both SCs are formed on the basis of the general architecture which includes geoinformation and expert systems, systems of imitating modeling and the situational analysis of educational processes.

Pic.1. The scheme of integrated SC structure.

Monitoring of all the necessary data, the analysis of an existing situation and modeling of consequences of the accepted decisions are the key problems of SCs. Nowadays techniques of interaction separate component of SC have been already developed and approved, the portal of engineering education (http: // www.techno.edu.ru) has been worked out and it is actively developing, approaches to training and concrete educational programs for experts have been developed for work in SC [Filippovich J.N., Filippovich A.JU. “Specialities and specializations on IAIS for educational branch. // Bulletin of information technologies in education. The collection of training and methodical and scientific works. Issue 1. - М.: 2005. – p.43-99]. Works on creation of situational models of educational processes and studies on the basis of new approaches in the field of information systems such, as SOA, EDA, BAM, BPEL which are more perspective and close to a paradigm of the situational centers, than monolithic and bulky ERP-systems are conducted.

 

The center of strategic management of educational establishment.

The center represents a key, from the point of view of management, component of corporate information system (CIS) of an educational establishment. ERP, CRM and portal decisions (SAP Campus, Distinction CRM, Microsoft Learning Gateway, etc.) are actively introduced abroad as CIS and in Russia own developments concerning a class of automated control systems of high school management (AMS HS) are basically used.

Despite the realized necessity of use of strategic management methods for educational establishments, attempts of creation of the specified class systems are not numerous and have an abstract character. It is possible to cite as an example the integrated automated information control system "University" of the Redlab company and its module DMSS (decision-making support system), constructed on technologies of Business Information Warehouse and Strategic Enterprise Management, joining SAP Business Intelligence. Abstractiveness of the decision consists in the following:

- Firstly, the allocated parameters of efficiency cannot be received in corpore even from the most developed information systems ASC HS that leads to disbalance of BSC system parameters.

- Secondly, the balanced parameters system is constructed empirically and subjectively since does not lean on one existing technique of complex definition of characteristics of high school though refers to separate parameters of educational quality system existing in Russia (within the limits of licensing, certification, accreditation procedures, etc.). For the sake of justice it is necessary to note, that the introduction of a strategic management system should be accompanied by the development of a new typical system of parameters or a completed one, differently it will not give a competitive advantage or will not consider the features of a concrete high school (organization).

The developed CRM-decisions for the high school environment in the domestic market are not widespread yet since the concept of representation of high school as business-provider of educational and research services is still developing. In western, especially American, educational organizations this approach has already existed for a long time and it is connected with payment specificity for training. But if earlier it was characterized by estimation of "covers" cost (university diplomas, certificates of the companies, etc.), today there is a problem of knowledge quantum digitization and estimations of the return of the enclosed means for training. Paul Hopkins, director on IТ of the Newcastle University (Great Britain) spoke about the urgency of this problem at Microsoft conference

" Education in the 21st century” which was held on October, 28th, 2005.

The form of a dialogue with clients which include not only entrants, students and their parents, but also commercial organizations, educational authorities, representatives of public funds, is passing a stage, when the publication of the results of training on sites is already insufficiently. The decision of problems of dynamic management in groups of clients and, as a consequence, the development of the general strategy is required.

It is necessary to note, that the Center of strategic management of the organization constructed on the system of BI class can be named the situational center with great reserve, however such understanding of SC is widely widespread among many domestic system integrators. You can go into details in " Creation of the situational center as a problem of system integration " by Eugenie Naumov and Alexei Shovkoun [ " Network ", 9, 2004].

The educational situational center.

Educational SC is intended for training of the service and operative staff which analysts and the persons responsible for decision-making enter. The situational centers of the Russian Academy of Public Service at the President of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Humanitarian University, Aviation Technical school named after V.A.Kazakov of Zhoukovsky, etc. are related to educational ones. Educational SCs can have the universal and directed character. In the first case the centers are directed to receptions of the general skills of work with technologies, program and hardware maintenance of SC. In the second case the centers either duplicate the existing working analogue, or allow to study separate transported components (for example, the software). Besides the operating situational centers can represent themselves as educational ones, due to use of a special “free-running”, “training” mode. The discussion of the questions on the theory and practice of construction educational SC can be found in materials of conferences

" The situational center as a tool of modeling of processes for preparation experts" and " Information and analytical means of decision-making support and the situational centers ", and also in the article " The training situational centers " (The System administrator. 4. May, 2003).

 

 

References:

1.     A. Yu. Philippovich. Integration of the Situational, Imitating, and Expert Modelling Systems. – Moscow, "Ltd. Elix+" Publ. House, 2003. – 300 p.

2.     A. Yu. Philippovich. Situational Centers: Definitions, Structure, and Classification. // PCWeek/RE N26(392), Moscow, July 15-21, 2003. p.p.21-22.

3.     A. Yu. Philippovich. Training Situational Centers // “System Administrator”, №4. May, 2003.

4.     E. Naumov, A. Shovkoun. Creation of the situational center as a problem of system integration .// " Network ", 9, 2004.

5.     Yu. N. Philippovich, A. Yu. Philippovich. Specialities in the Field of Integrated Automated Information Systems.//Bulletin of Information Technologies in Education. Collected training and scientific works. Issue 1.- Moscow, 2005.- pages 43-49.