Roumen Nikolov

Design Issues of a Distance Learning Course on Business on the Internet

The paper presents the main design issues of a distance learning course on Business on the Internet. The instructional design is based on a learner-centred instructional strategy which allows learners to construct their own knowledge while solving real business problems and transferring their knowledge to other learners. They learn autonomously taking the responsibility for their learning and following their individual cognitive styles, interests, preferences. The learners have access to the Internet being members of a global, cooperative learning community. The learning community involves students and tutors who collectively take responsibility for the design and evaluation of the course content and the teaching methods to be applied. Both students and tutors inhabit a virtual learning environment that offers different virtual places and services: virtual university, virtual enterprise, auditoriums, workshop rooms, cafes, libraries, etc. where students from different locations can meet, interact, learn and work together, as if they were face-to-face.

Emerging models and e-infrastructures for teacher education

The paper presents a digital repository of metadata resources for teachers education, as well as a portal for the community of practices, build around the repository. Both the repository and the community are developed in the frame of the European project Share.TEC. Some approaches for endowing digital libraries with adaptability capabilities in order to scaffold and enhance end user experience are examined. The paper provides a general overview of techniques and methods commonly adopted for achieving adaptability. It also discusses how these can be implemented. Finally, it illustrates specific examples and guidelines drawn from the practical experience that the authors are currently gaining in the Share.TEC European project. In this context the adaptability is a key for managing and responding to considerable diversity in user requirements.

Learning in a Smart City Environment

Advances in technology in recent years have changed the learning behaviours of learners and reshaped teaching methods and learning environments. This paper overviews a foundational framework and provides models for planning and implementing smart learning environments. Gartner’s 2015 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies identifies the computing innovations such as Internet of Things, Advanced Analytics, Machine Learning, Wearables, etc., that organisations should monitor. Learners and students, being the future drivers of these industries, are the main human resource to fulfil the vacancies of these work forces. Constant improvements and re-evaluation of the curriculum has to be done regularly to keep the learners up-to-date in meeting the requirements of these industries and corporations. Universities benefit from these thinking-outside-the-box practices by equipping students with work force experience that involves more hands-on tasks with real-life infrastructures. The introduction is focused on analysis of emerging industries and new types of jobs that require future personnel to be well equipped to meet the expansion requirements of these industries and keep up with their development needs. Section 2 looks at the future Internet domain landscape that comprises a great diversity of technology related topics involved in the implementation of Smart Learning Environments. The purpose of section 3 is to overview a foundational framework and major considerations for the planning and implementation of smart learning environments, behind which is the convergence of advances and developments in social constructivism, psychology, and technology. Section 4 introduces the smart learning models which are developed to reflect the dynamic knowledge conversion processes in technology enabled smart learning environments. The last section presents a case study of a learning scenario entitled “Monitoring the environmental parameters in a Smart City” as an illustration of experimental learning on Internet of Things, which proofs the power of the FORGE (Forging Online Education through FIRE) FP7 project methodology and infrastructure for building remote labs and delivering them to students. ACM Computing Classification System (1998): K.3.2.

User Interfaces for a Virtual Learning Environment: Two Study Cases

A recent powerful idea in the design of Web-based learning environments is the usage of virtual places. The employment of interface metaphors is one of the approaches enabling inexperienced users to feel comfortable in such virtual environments. We have designed a Virtual Environment for Distance Education and Training (VEDET), which provides basic virtual spaces, resources, and services. In this paper we discuss the user interface of two Web-based distance learning courses Business on the Internet and Business English, developed on the basis of VEDET. A web-based learning environment has been implemented to support the delivery of these courses. Two examples of interface metaphors have been developed and adopted, each presenting a coherent image of the environment.

Internet of Things for Wellbeing – Pilot Case of a Smart Health Cardio Belt

This paper deals with the opportunities that the advanced telemedicine and information technologies can give for preventing patients with cardiovascular diseases – the leading cause of deaths worldwide. The selected pilot case presents a Smart Health Cardio Belt (SHCB) system developed by the Bulgarian team on the basis of the existing TEMEO prototype. Through the SHCB system, the patient is linked to the medical centre which monitors the patient 24 hours per day while in the same time, the patient is capable in accomplishing all activities of his normal day. The medical centre reacts adequately when a critical event appears. The SHCB system is based on the existing and new developed Internet services. They are piloted, fine tuned and implemented under the FP7 ELLIOT Project. The impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) embedded in it is measured and carefully analysed through a set of knowledge-social-business (KSB) experience models. Their functionality and effectiveness are analysed, exploring the integrity of the social, intellectual, cognitive, economical, legal and ethical aspects of its usage.

A model for strengthening the software engineering research capacity

Like all other New Member States (NMS) Bulgaria is experiencing a dramatic change in all areas of its society. These changes reflect very seriously on the research capacity of the country and, in particular to Sofia University (SU). The Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics (FMI) has experienced some serious problems closely related to the general socio-economic and the research environment in Bulgaria. This paper describes a model for strengthening the research capacity of FMI, especially the one in the area of Software Engineering. The case study of successful industry-university cooperation in the framework of European project is presented.

Distance Education in Schools: Perspectives and Realities

This chapter discusses the role of distance education in K-12 education. Distance education is used as a general term for teaching and learning when teachers and learners are separate in terms of space and time, in which information and communication technology (ICT) are used to facilitate the teaching and learning process. It is believed that because of developments in ICTs distance education can serve as a catalyst of a new global educational reform in schools aimed to break the monopoly of the print and paper based educational system. To realize such ongoing educational reform distance education should make use of virtual learning environments which do not put clear boundaries between physical and virtual worlds. A key factor for success of distance education is to design virtual learning environments which apply relevant instructional design strategies based on a current learning theory. Research on the effectiveness of distance education is discussed. The future of distance education is considered in the context of Web 2.0 schools.

EDUCATION IN INFORMATICS AT SOFIA UNIVERSITY - CURRENT STATUS AND FUTURE PLANS

Abstract The paper presents some real experiences, emerging models and lessons learnt based on the case of Sofia University - Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics (FMI), and its partners. Sofia University has always played a very important role for the development of the country. The university experiences a lot of challenges related to the overall transformation of the economic and social system in the country, the changing models of education, the new role of the universities in the knowledge-based society and the great demand for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) specialists. Sofia University is also challenged by the opportunity to be actively involved in the development of the European space of higher education. The outcomes of an internal university project aimed at the establishment of ACM/IEEE based BSc programs in Computer Science, Software Engineering and Information Systems are described and analyzed. Some experience in developing a layer of MSc programs as a live link to the professional ICT society and ICT industry is also described. Some future plans for the development of the Computing Curricula and its coordination with the European ICT education, research and innovation agenda are presented as well.

Towards an organisational model of ‘interface’ university structure as a means of serving Lifelong Learning needs

The paper conceptualises on the experiences of the Centre of Information Society Technologies (CIST), Sofia University, Bulgaria, in serving the learning and training needs of non-university audiences who fall in situations that can be described as lifelong learning-determined. In developing this conceptualisation we use the research findings and policy agendas in two distinct areas — Lifelong Learning, and Higher Education Systems. More specifically we explore the organisational and management issues and challenges of the quite interestingsituation of a structure behaving “in between” the market shaped lifelong learning demands, and the rules and practices of “classical university” structures to which CIST is subordinated. As a result of these three streams of thought and practice we outline an ‘interface’ model of university interdisciplinary structure, which aims to explicitly meet the demands of the lifelong learning market.

Developing experiential living lab as platforms for embedded innovation

Within the last decade open innovation became a key ingredient for knowledge creation and knowledge absorption strategies of large companies. SMEs are usually considered to lack resources and capacity to organize alone open innovation activities. In this perspective, Hafkesbrink and Scholl (2010) proposed the model of Innovation 3.0 or embedded innovation, in order to illustrate how SMEs can take advantage of community knowledge. As living labs emerged as community knowledge creation model, they can be discussed as appropriate innovation infrastructure for SMEs based on embedded innovation. However, putting a living lab in operation and building around it dynamic and responsive communities is a challenging experience. The present research proposes a model for a living lab organization and development, combining three perspectives: the Embedded Innovation model (integrating the organization into communities to ensure knowledge absorption), the Knowledge-Social-Business experience (KSB) model (developed under the ELLIOT project) and the Technology-Mediated Social Platform model (TMSP). The new model will integrate the key aspects of living labs and will complete the gaps identified on practice. Finally, an experimental living lab ecosystem for implementing the new model is introduced.