Learning from the Internet - contributing to the Internet

Demchenko Yu.V.
National Technical University of Ukraine 
Kiev Polytechnic Institute
Associate Professor at Computer Aided Department
demch@nicc.polytech.kiev.ua
http://cad.polytech.kiev.ua/~demch/
Tel. (044) 441-9030, 441-9277  Fax (044) 244-6478
Abstracts

Society's demand on professional educational in modern Networking Information Technologies, mainly caused by rapidly developing Internet in Ukraine, initiated this pioneer work in Kiev Polytechnic Institute at CAD Department on developing original educational course and Instructional Methodology for teaching Computer Networking and Internet Information Technologies.

It was impossible to duplicate experience of some western universities in our environment with bad connectivity and poor information resources. New approach had to be found. We should to learn from the Internet and contribute to building of our Internet and Information Infrastructure and Resources.

It wasn't completely topical to learn the Internet only. First of all, we have to equip future specialists with the basic knowledge in Computer Networking - how to build corporate and/or departmental network, and after that - how to implement integrated information services on the base of Internet Technologies.

It was right paradigm for our conditions and it worked out.

  1. Professional Education in Networking Information Technologies as a demand of emerging Global Information Society

    An important role in participation of Ukraine in GII development and creating elements of Open Information Society will belong to Universities' Academic and Research community. Till now the main and most notable activities in Ukraine were oriented on building regional networking infrastructure for Academic and Research communities in the frame of numerous state and international projects. But the main impact on Internet penetration into our living belong to wide development of commercial Internet Service providers. Further development of Networking and Information Infrastructure in Ukraine will demand professional education of specialists in Networking and Communication Technologies and wide User Training and Support.

    Discussed project on development of Educational course and Instructional Methodology for Teaching Computer Networking and Internet Information Technologies was started by Computer Aided Design Department at Kiev Polytechnic Institute because of existing demands of Internet and Networking Information Technologies development in Ukraine. The project is based on effective utilization of existing professional resources and specialists in modern networking technologies and Internet in Kiev Polytechnic Institute.

    The project has two part of activities: professional education in modern Networking and Information Technologies, and associated with it training on Internet and services applications for different categories of users. This approach reflects existing in the world experience of two directions in wide implementation of new technologies: professional education that create and strengthen sustainable basis (academic and research) for implementation of new technologies, and short term training and continuos professional renewal for satisfying urgent demands in dissemination of new technologies among wide group of users.

  2. Pilot educational program on Networking Information Technologies and Services Pilot group of 50 engineer students of the firth year have started education from September 1995 till May 1996, part of them will continue their Master education till March 1997 and will work on their Master degree thesises on Internet and Networking Information Technologies related topics. Also they will be engaged into development of complete educational course technical and information base.

    Complete Information Technologies implementation demands good knowledge and technical base in computer networking technologies. So, considering the local conditions with bad connectivity and low awarance in modern networking technologies among students and practical specialists as well as previous educational background of students in computing and networking, pilot course was compounded of three basic part: Computer Networking, Internetworking and Internet Information Services, - completing necessary educational base for designing corporate and/or campus computer information networks.

    The pilot educational program includes the main specialized courses on Networking Information Technologies and Information Resource Management that can be developed on existing information and technical base with minimum additional funding:

    Information and Advanced Communication Technologies, society and organization.

    The pilot development of mentioned courses is intended to span the main issues of teaching Networking Information Technologies. Another purpose of such pilot work is to adopt and test Russian terminology on real lecturing and educational project development.

    Some practical experience will be acquired by students during practical projects designing in autumn and spring semesters that include development of real networks projects for concrete academic and educational institutions including development of necessary information services for operational needs of given organizations and/or users group. Also practical installation of services and pilot information resource development was performed on special educational laboratory base.

    The projects should be developed by groups of three or four students and include all necessary components of real networking project design of campus or companys network including

    The methodological approach and course management system were intended to be based on students independent work and choice of topics of their educational course and diploma projects including organising optimal cooperative work of the project group.

    The methodological and instructional materials for such project work are based on materials of real networking projects of KPI Campus Network, ISF Telecommunication Project for Creating Pilot IP Network in Kiev (http://cad.polytech.kiev.ua/projects/projects.html) and other materials.

    Initially, proposed list of Internet services to be developed in the frame of the projects included all basic Internet services. But later during the current projects design it was realised that the main emphasis should be done on WWW technology. Now all projects has their temporal presentations at educational WWW server at CAD Department (http://cad.polytech.kiev.ua/academic/nits-prj.html). Some HTML templates developed in such projects were used for completing departmental WWW Server. Many good ideas were developed by students. All were involved in information resources creation.

    Also five pre-graduate students are working now on their diploma projects on Internet and related topics summarising their current diploma practice work at their future working places. One of the significant results of such diploma practice was creating WWW Homepage of Ukrainian GalaRadio FM100 Broadcasting Company at http://www.cs.kiev.ua/home/gala/ that serve information needs and listeners” auditorium feedback.

    We suppose that future Master thesises of pilot group of students will concern the very Internet information technologies and tools development including C++ and shell programming for WWW and distributed applications.

  3. Current results and acquired experience The main intermediate results of pilot project realisation can be stated

    1. Creation of initial base of learning materials on Russian language on pilot courses
    2. Developing training materials for practical studying of Internet technologies
    3. Involvement of students in creation of educational base and learning projects examples as well pilot testing of instructional methodology
    4. Creation and operation of educational server and development of students account management policy
    5. Acquiring necessary technical information about networking hardware and software as well as other information resources
    To provide efficient tool for testing students knowledge and feedback for course revising and improvement, special examination test system was developed. The questionnaires consist of 50 questions (randomly chosen and sorted) covering all key items of the course. Officially adopted such test system could be used for specialists certification for organizational staff education and training management needs.

    One of the interesting secondary result in teaching such course, mainly based on English language manuals and handbooks materials, is in rising aspiration of students to learn and enhance their knowledge of English. All educational projects Homepages have their presentations in English and Russian/Ukrainian languages but some documents has only their original presentation on one language.

    Special condition for these pioneer course and diploma projects was the obligatory use of Russian or Ukrainian languages for preparing textual materials of the projects that sometimes contradicted with desire of students who has good knowledge of English and practically work in Internet. That will help us to create information data base for future course development and dissemination.

    Another task of preparation stage of the whole project realization is to encourage of wide use of Internet and computer communications among professors, tutors and students as a way to develop collaborative learning models at the department. Professional academic contacts have to be established for cooperative development of the new educational courses and technologies.

    To provide course with current technical information and training technologies professors and tutors of CAD Department actively participate in organizing Workshops, Conferences and Seminars in Kiev and Ukraine with projects promotion purposes (look at related events at http://cad.polytech.kiev.ua/events/). Participation in training activity helps universities tutors to understand better real needs of different categories of users and practical workers.

    Basic training materials and courses on Internet related issues is being developed during realisation of the pilot academic curricula. Also regular training courses for different categories of users were started at CAD Department. The first group trained, surely, consisted of teachers staff of the Department that encouraged them to use networking tools in academic process. Another one was a group of 30 students of KPI taking part in the international distance educational course of IUAP (International Association of Universities Presidents) on the book Preparing to the XXI Century by Paul Kennedy.

    The main background conditions of successful realisation of this initiative activity are the following

    Leading specialists in networking technologies from local companies and institutions in Kiev are invited to read some lectures on their professional skills. Course is supported permanently by group of experts and consultants from cooperating organizations and companies.

    The current experience allows to suppose that wide implementation of such course and whole realisation of its potentiality in present conditions will affect teaching of another IT related courses at the Department and their integration on the base of Internet networking and information technologies which was found to be very effective for such purposes.

  4. Existing problems

    Current project realisation was faced with number of problems caused by technical, organizational, methodological and funding reasons. Some of them can be discussed more detailed:

    1. Technical problems including
      • low speed of existing Internet links that demands special buffering and mirroring of the main popular information resources (for example, RFC, Documents on Internet Protocols, Network Security, HTML and HTML Editors, weather server and pop-music) at educational server to avoid unnecessary traffic via very slow external link of Campus network
      • absent of special equipment for traffic separation and efficient students account access management
    2. Methodological problems that include
      • first of all, lack of experience of teaching such modern courses in Ukraine and FSU
      • absent of instructional materials and handbooks on Russian or Ukrainian languages
      • a small number of tutors with practical experience that can cover all items of prospective curriculum
    3. Funding problems including shortage and lack of necessary funding for proper implementation of such educational project.
    Summary

    Intending for wide dissemination of current work, special Educational and Training Materials server integrated into POLYTECH Campus network was established at CAD Department (to be merged in the near future to the name eduserv.polytech.kiev.ua) that consists of basic information about academic curricula and students projects as well as basic training packages for training Internet related issues. Developed examination tests will be converted to WWW interactive CGI form for providing interactive Internet training.

    Necessary component of any implementation strategy will include stage of promotion to reach wide awareness of prospective users from academic and research communities with real possibilities of Internet and Networking Information Technologies and multimedia in different areas of activity. Also such promotion must be oriented on establishing cooperation and finding technical and financial support for realisation of the full project.

    We hope that such pioneer work will create base for wide implementation of Networking IT in Universitys environment and mobilise communitys intellectual forces for self supporting development of new technologies. Some areas of fruitful international cooperation should be found in applications development areas, first of all, exchanging of the educational courses and instructional methodologies on different subjects interesting for foreign Universities and Companies. 

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Yuri Demchenko                 Tel.: +380 (44) 441-90-30, 441-92-77
Associate Professor            demch@nicc.polytech.kiev.ua
Computer Aided Design Dept.    http://cad.polytech.kiev.ua/~demch/
Kiev Polytecnic Institute

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