Hrvoje Stančić

Quality parameters for the e-learning Omega system

Learning and teaching are considered to be the main activities in higher education. The environment in which these activities take place is rapidly changing and it is getting more and more oriented towards teaching with the help of the new technologies, namely e-learning system, relying not only on technical skills but also on motivation and contextualisation. In the paper, different views towards the quality of e-learning have been presented, and the research regarding the quality of the e-learning Omega system (Moodle) conducted at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb presented in relation to different European policies.

Impact of ICT on archival practice from the 2000s onwards and the necessary changes of archival science curricula

At the outset authors of this article investigate the influence of ICT on archival practice. All archival processes are affected by latest developments in ICT. DMS and eSignature requirements and legislation (like MoReq and eIDAS) influenced record management practice. PAIS, OAIS and storage solutions have their impact on the archival management. Special audio and video format solutions influenced specialised archives. Graph databases as a more agile tool for organising information and the upcoming Records in Contexts (RiC) standard are influencing archival description. New preservation methods have emerged - Chain of Preservation model (COP) and the upcoming Preservation-as-a-Service for Trust (PaasT) model. PaasT is the result of growing cloud services. Semantic web influenced retrieval and usage of materials in all heritage institutions. The authors proceed to discuss how the elaborated changes should reflect the archival science academic curricula. They investigate what are new archival science core competences that should be taught to students and archival professionals by university teachers today, how should universities prepare their students of archival science for contemporary (digital) labour market etc. The authors offer a clear position what archival competencies, arising from the influence of ICT and cloud environment, should be built upon in the contemporary archival science curricula.

Archival Cloud Services: Portability, Continuity, and Sustainability Aspects of Long-term Preservation of Electronically Signed Records / Les services d'archivage dans un nuage informatique : Portabilité, continuité et durabilité: Aspects de la conservation à long terme des documents signés électroniquement

The authors discuss key processes needed to establish archival cloud services. This is done by examining long-term preservation mechanisms and their elements. In this context, the authors explore the electronic document safe concept and analyse two models of cloud-based digital archives. The authors propose a model of archival cloud services and discuss the portability, continuity, and sustainability aspects of long-term preservation of electronically signed records. Les auteurs de cet article discutent des processus clés nécessaires à la mise en place de services d’archivage par nuage informatique. Pour ce faire, ils examinent les mécanismes de conservation à long terme et les éléments qui les composent. Dans ce contexte, ils explorent le concept de coffre de sûreté pour documents électroniques, et ils analysent deux modèles d’archives numériques basés sur un nuage informatique. Les auteurs proposent un modèle de services d’archivage par nuage informatique et discutent de la portabilité, de la continuité et de la durabilité en tant qu’aspects de la conservation à long terme des documents signés électroniquement.

Long-term Preservation of Longitudinal Statistical Surveys in Psycholinguistic Research

Psycholinguistics deals with different types of evidence and obtained data, including confidential information which needs to be protected from disclosure and other security threats. When it comes to speech-language pathologies, researchers in psycholinguistics are especially interested in aphasia. Aphasia is a loss of language ability as a consequence of brain damage, which may result from head injury or stroke. Research data has to be adequately stored, processed, protected and if possible, preserved for secondary use. Authors are proposing possible application of models and tools used in official statistics and concepts from the archival science that could contribute to solving the so far unresolved issues in the research on aphasia and its records management requirements in the context of long-term preservation, trust, and reuse.

Digitally Signed Records - Friend or Foe?

Long-term preservation of digitally signed records may be a challenging task. Digital signatures expire and digital certificates may be revoked, thus influencing the trustworthiness of archived digital records. The authors firstly explain the problems and then proceed to a description of the planned research. The research will be conducted on a sample of digitally signed and archived electronic forms stored in the PDF file format, originating from the period from 2006 to 2009.

Development of Health Care e-Services in the European Union

Development and implementation of e-services has become a common practice of state and public administrations in the developed countries around the world since the usage of information and communication technologies has enabled a faster processing of user applications and more efficient functioning of the service. This paper analyses the level of development of e-services in health care systems of eight European countries, both in terms of safety and reliability from the perspective of end users, i.e. citizens. Furthermore, the concept of trust in eservices based on the availability of information on the Internet on applied technological solutions, storage and data protection and their availability is considered. Implementation of services like e-health records and e-prescriptions requires a well-developed strategy and a very transparent way of their functioning because of the sensitive nature of health data. For this study official websites of the services were searched through, as were other sources on the Internet. The research results indicate a lack of certain key information, especially those related to data storage, their protection and long-term preservation.

Statistical microdata — Production of safe da-tasets, transparent presentation of contents and advanced services for users through metadata authorization system

In the European Statistical System (ESS) there are more and more generic information systems (ISs) being developed and implemented for production and dissemination of official statistics (OS) macrodata datasets. These generic systems are based on metadata repositories providing, in return, a whole set of additional functionalities and services for users of the systems. Microdata dissemination, being the youngest and least developed discipline in official statistics dataset dissemination, currently still lacks appropriate organization of business procedures and compatible generic tools for the purpose of integration of all the ESS subsystems into one central Data Service (DS) providing microdata datasets for international users and enabling preservation of microdata datasets. The authors analyze current situation regarding statistical microdata sets acquisition and preservation in digital archives (DAs), provide valuable considerations and propose recommendations to take into account when developing repositories and systems for presentation of available microdata datasets to users. Along with that, the authors introduce the way of usage of appropriate Statistical Disclosure Control (SDC) methods for production of safe microdata outputs. Finally, the authors recommend the development of a central administrative metadata repository that could be used for users authorization, and that could have additional services for users based on available metadata about users in the system.

Using a Socio-technical Approach to Build a National Extranet Portal in the Medicines Regulatory Sector

The aim of this paper is to show the process of planning, building and establishing of the extranet portal of Croatian Agency for medicinal products and medical devices relying heavily on the future users’ involvement, suggestions and input in all stages of the process. Agency for medicinal products and medical devices is Croatian national competent authority (NCA) with the mandate of regulation of pharmaceutical products. The authors explain that the regulation process includes submission of medicinal products’ dossiers from industry to the Agency, interaction during assessment of documentation and gaining approvals for the products. At the moment, in Croatia, these processes are using conventional resources, i.e. paper dossiers and conventional communication channels like registration office and conventional correspondence. Meanwhile, regulatory processes worldwide and in the EU have been enhanced by using different web portals and by shifting to electronic medicinal products documentation in standard format called electronic common technical document (eCTD). In this paper the authors analyse the process of launching an internal project by the Croatian NCA aiming to build a web portal for submission of data and dossiers, communication and interactive work with the industry. The portal will be created for pharmaceutical companies that are external users of Agency’s services. This project has gathered and involved industry representatives as the future users of the extranet portal. The authors point out that the benefits from this method of interactive extranet portal building, involving all stakeholders, are twofold. Benefits on the industry side and on the Agency side. The portal, the authors emphasise, will have elements that are in line with the three socio- technical layers of web. The portal will allow read-only access to the data about medicines that are gathered and maintained by the Agency and this is a measure that supports the Web 1 layer. The Web 2 concept is supported as the portal enables direct communication of industry representatives with the Agency’s employees through messages and document exchange, as well as direct communication between industry representatives. The Web 3 functions are also supported by the portals initiation of medicinal products’ regulatory activities through online forms and electronic documentation exchange as well as automatic notifications of users on certain procedure changes.