ICT EDUCATION FOR HIGHER COMPETITIVENESS

OF THE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Ladislav Burita

1,2

and Pavel Rosman

Department of Industrial Engineering and Information Systems, Tomas Bata University,

Mostni 5139, Zlin, Czech Republic

Communication and Information Systems Department, University of Defence, Kounicova 65, Brno, Czech Republic

Keywords: Computer Science, Education, Evaluation, Experience, Knowledge Management System, Research.

Abstract: The paper summarizes the experience of teaching Computer Science at the Faculty of Management and

Economics at Tomas Bata University in Zlín. Furthermore, the implementation of a knowledge management

system in education at the Faculty of Military Technology at the University of Defence in Brno is

mentioned. The methodology, an overview of subject areas, application of information and communication

technologies (ICT) in instruction and its organization are also presented herein. The results of some research

activities in the field of Informatics instruction are introduced; and options for future development of the

courses are proposed. The introduction of new approaches and methods into teaching with the use of ICT is

offered.

1 INTRODUCTION

In this paper authors raise a question whether

students and teachers in education are adequately

prepared to use all the opportunities and approaches

leading to effective teaching, particularly in the field

of learning supported by modern ICT, which offer

new possibilities and how to prepare students in ICT

areas to gain more competitiveness. The potential of

the knowledge management system in education is

described.

Authors mentioned two different courses: one

course is Computer Science to prospective

economists and managers at the Faculty of

Management and Economics (FaME), Tomas Bata

University (TBU) in Zlín (http://www.utb.cz), and

the second course is Project of ICT at the Faculty of

Military Technology (FMT), University of Defence

(UoD) in Brno (http://www.unob.cz), Czech

Republic.

The course of FaME is more elaborated (see

chapter 2-3) in the paper and the results are included

of research in teaching. It is mentioned elaborate

only on one of the research goal: to what extent the

course meets the expectations of prospective

economists and managers for the use in practice

(competitiveness). The analysis of the research

results makes it possible to suggest options for

further development of the course. The structure of

the course is in the table 1. There is difference of

teaching the course to full-time and part-time

students. The part-time students have only

consultations (lectures and discussion) and the full-

time students have in addition practice.

The Computer Science for Economists (CSE)

course might serve as an example when a whole

range of literature is available on the market as well

as plenty of interactive courses on the Internet. The

development of the Internet has brought about new

alternatives to traditional forms of study – and ICT

play a key role in them. The content of computer

science instruction has been a long-term discussion

(Rosman and Burita, 2011).

One of the outcomes of these debates is the

understanding of the importance of professional

working with the Office Automation (OA), which is

also reflected in the recognition of the qualification

level achieved by gaining the European Computer

Driving License (ECDL).

The course at FMT includes three main parts:

project, information, and knowledge management.

Only the third part is mentioned in the paper (see

chapter 4) to illustrate the quick transfer of

knowledge from research to education and to shows

the possibilities of knowledge system as an

education theme.

283

Burita L. and Rosman P..

ICT EDUCATION FOR HIGHER COMPETITIVENESS OF THE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS.

DOI: 10.5220/0003904302830286

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2012), pages 283-286

ISBN: 978-989-8565-07-5

 2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

2 EVOLUTION OF COMPUTER

SCIENCE EDUCATION

The main objective of the course still lies in

providing an overview of modern ICT, with regard

to all the necessary components of information

systems and applications, particularly OA including

their essential characteristics and reciprocal links.

Furthermore, we were interested in the student

attitude to this type of education, including the

willingness to invest money in it. General views on

the acquisition and development of computer and

information literacy have been changing in the

course of history and still differ.

As a unifying requirement for achieving a

measurable level of knowledge and practical skills

might serve, for example, the requirements specified

for earning the ECDL. This fact is reflected in our

methodology: the students who present a valid

ECDL certificate have fulfilled the requirements and

are not obliged to enrol in the course. The objectives

and description of the course are stated on the

university portal (http://portal.utb.cz) in the course

syllabus.

At the beginning of the semester, the students

use the university information system (IS) to enrol in

courses and chose particular seminars and practical

exercises in laboratories. Thus they optimize their

own study schedule. Communication between

teachers and students of both study forms is

performed through the CSE portal (http://ipe.fame.

utb.cz/). Students access their study materials in the

distance learning courses in the Moodle Learning

Management System at portal Vyuka (http://vyuka.

fame.utb.cz/), including course books and guidelines

for exercises in laboratories. Furthermore, students

have at disposal a large number of sample

documents created in OA, and thus they can

compare their products to the standards.

3 RESEARCH ON THE

INNOVATION OF

APPROACHES TO TEACHING

In the 2010/2011 academic year, over 550 students

(355 full-time, 196 part-time and 14 life-long

learning) were admitted to the FaME/TBU in Zlín.

To obtain adequate feedback of the quality

education, an extensive research was carried out at

the end of the semester in the academic year

2010/2011. It confirmed the correct aiming of the

course, but also identified possible areas of

improvement.

To obtain the results, two target groups of

students who have successfully completed study

requirements were addressed. After finishing the

course, the part-time students (KIPE) were asked to

fill in a paper questionnaire. The full-time students

(PIPE) were asked to fill in an online questionnaire.

The intention was not only to gain the views of

students, including the assessment, but also to

compare the two approaches in research and

teaching the subject. Almost 70% of questionnaires

were completed and submitted, which borders on a

successful research (in theory 75% questionnaires

should be submitted).

Two examples of the evaluation process

continue. The first example analyses the students’

response of the item: “Benefits of lectures to

students and the difficulty of the course.” In both

tests, the benefit of the CSE (IPE) course subject

areas was examined in detail. Individual subject

areas were marked; the average mark in test 1 is 1.89

(1.68 is the best and 2.14 the worst one); the average

mark in test 2 is 2.27 (1.80 is the best and 2.76 the

worst one), see Table 1. The scale is 1 to 5; 1 is the

best.

Table 1: Importance of the CSE (IPE) subject areas for

students [Source: authors].

The least beneficial subject areas marked by the

students were areas 3 and 7; the full-time students

identified areas 3, 6, 7 and 8. The subject area which

also includes the issues of enterprise computer

science earned the average mark of 1.97 by the part-

time students and 2.50 by the full-time students.

Regarding the fact that lectures at the

FaME/TBU are not mandatory, students’ attendance

was decreasing steadily from almost 100% at the

beginning of the course to less than a half. The full-

time students lacked motivation to participate in

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lectures, and therefore they challenged the benefits

and importance of the lectures. They expressed more

criticism; however, it is vital to state here that they

have less or no practical experience in the use of

ICT in practice. They have not been able to assess

the importance of the course in view of the future

needs so far, and thus their marks were lower than

the marks suggested by the part-time students.

The question of the appropriateness of the choice

of subject areas presented in lectures was assigned to

the PIPE students only. The teaching should reflect

the requirement for getting the ICT skills of students

from various schools on the same level, preparing

them for work with ICT at the FaME, and enhancing

the professionalism of work with ICT for enterprise

computer science. Table 2 shows the result of the

responses. The vast majority of students consider the

subject’s areas are beneficial for them.

Table 2: Importance of the CSE (IPE) subject areas for

students [Source: authors].

4 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

SYSTEM FOR EDUCATION

The information and knowledge society needs well

trained professionals who will be able to work with

knowledge in enterprises, government and public

organizations, and will be able to innovate

processes. Meeting such demands is not an easy

task. Therefore, besides an increase in the potential

of knowledge, the students should develop creative

skills and personality traits that would lead them to

the enhancement of their problem solving skills.

The procedure and method of teaching the

knowledge approaches at the University of Defence

(UoD) in Brno, Faculty of Military Technology

(FMT) and creation of knowledge-based systems to

students model the methodology used in the research

project MENTAL, Knowledge Management of the

Network Enabled Capability of the Army of the

Czech Republic (ACR) in 2008-2011.

The research defence project MENTAL was

oriented at the research of the knowledge and KMS

development for the NEC administration in the

ACR. NEC concept includes all ideas and measures

about warfare in the information age.

The following example of individual student’s

work was taken from the „conferences” domain. At

first, the basic concepts and work with information

sources are introduced to students, and

simultaneously, the TOVEK SW modules are

described and used (www.tovek.cz). Consequently,

the students are introduced to knowledge

approaches, creating ontology in the AToM2 SW

environment (www.aion.cz).

Figure 1: Ontology design [Source: authors].

The key problem of the knowledge management

system (KMS) development is ontology preparation

(model of the system). Classes and associations of

the ontology see at Figure 1.

Figure 2: Example of knowledge base on conferences in

the ATOM2 environment [Source: authors].

The procedure of the ontology elaboration

consists of typical software engineering steps:

analysis, design, implementation, testing, and

production. The implementation environment is the

ATOM2 SW, see Figure 2.

The opportunity of the KMS for the education is

resulting from its characteristics. The embedded

information and knowledge can be divided into

small parts and connected into requirement nets.

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Ontology driven KMS offers the chance to study

various themes according ontology concepts

(classes). Each occurrence of the class is a start point

for the new study problem, see Figure 3. The next

advantage is a complex environment where there is

no problem to add or change new study material.

Figure 3: The various starting points for the study [Source:

authors].

5 CONCLUSIONS

The first part of the paper analyses state of the

university teaching and explains the ICT role in

education process; it is followed by the description

of the teaching of Computer Science at TBU/FaME

in Zlín. The second part of the paper describes the

procedure of teaching the knowledge approach at

UoD/FMT in Brno and illustrates quick transfer

knowledge from research to education.

It states the objective, overview of subject areas and

methodology of teaching as well as the use of

information and communication technologies. The

second part contains some results of the research on

the Computer Science for Economists course and its

importance for students, focusing mostly on

enterprise computer science. The analysis of the

research results makes it possible to suggest options

for further development of the course.

The evaluation by students of both forms of

study (full-time and part-time) was positively

influenced by a number of measures and operational

changes leading to more effective communication

towards students, including innovation of the SCE

course content, which was introduced in the

2011/2012 academic year.

These include the implementation of the CSE

course portal, new FTP server and a range of

measures aimed at the improvement of the

preparation, course content and conduction of the

CSE course. They resulted from our research report,

which intended to streamline the issue of university

education, using ICT as a means for not only

obtaining information, but especially for education

and communication.

REFERENCES

Rosman, P., Burita, L., 2011. Experience of the

Integration of ICT into University Education. In

Information and Communication Technology in

Education ICTE´2011. University of Ostrava Press.

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