The Analysis of Information Needs of Decision-Makers in Area

THE ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION NEEDS OF DECISION-MAKERS IN THE AREA OF HIGHER EDUCATION OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING (FINAL PAPER)

The analysis of information needs of decision-makers in the area of higher education open and distance learning in various regions of the Commonwealth of Inde- pendent States (CIS) in correlation with the development and projected establishment of a Higher Education Open and Distance Learning Knowledge Base (ODLKB) for Decision-Makers was carried out by the UNESCO Institute for Information Technolo- gies in Education (IITE) using a method of expert interrogation. As the experts the chiefs of the educational and research centres of higher education open and distance learning located in various CIS regions and participating in the regional programs of development of ODL were chosen. An expert estimation of information needs in creation regional ODLKB of Russia and final report were executed by the Director of the Centre for Intensive Technologies of Education (CITE) Dr Alexandre Goustyr (e- mail: [email protected]), the analysis of similar needs of other Republics of the European part of the Commonwealth and Transcaucasia — by the Vice-rector of the National Technical University of Ukraine "Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" (NTU-KPI) Prof. Nataliya Pankratova (e-mail: [email protected] ), of the CIS Repub- lics of the Asian part— by the Director of the Centre of New Technologies in Educa- tion of the International University of Kyrgyzstan (CNTE-IUK) Dr Vladimir Greb- nev (e-mail: [email protected]). The following tasks were put forward: 1. To characterize in general a urgency of the project of establishment of regional Higher Education Open and Distance Learning Knowledge Base for Decision- Makers to give a general estimation of regional needs in information maintenance of development of ODL. To describe known databases and knowledge bases in region concerning to Higher Education Open and Distance Learning (ODL), and also published analytical and statistical materials, which can be used while creation of ODLKB; 2. To offer the list and to give the brief characteristic of various categories of decision-makers, interested in creation of projected ODLKB (target groups of the project); 3. To give provisional classification and characteristic of information needs of target groups, in connection with projected ODLKB (whenever possible, with the indication

1 of differences in the needs of the selected groups); to determine thus exemplary structure of ODLKB, corresponding to these needs; 4. To formulate the recommendations for organization and consumer characteristics of ODLKB (way both form of access and use, carriers of the information, service, inter- face, etc.); 5. To describe the probable mechanism of maintenance and updating ODLKB in the region (to name the state and private (independent) organizations, establishments, bodies of management of education, interested in it, to offer probable form of their in- teraction); 6. To give the characteristic of needs of target groups in retraining and improvement of qualification regarding the tasks of development of open and distance education in the region and, in particular, in connection with use of projected regional ODLKB; The attention of the experts was inverted that classification and analysis of needs of target groups in ODLKB should be correlated to the description and analysis of the most significant and urgent tasks solved by these groups within the framework of their professional duties (for example, tasks of growth of availability and improvement of quality of education). It was recommended also to reveal and to describe the most important problems of target groups, which the necessity of decision generates the appropriate information needs (for example, problem of a choice of information and communication technologies (ICTs), optimum from the point of view of a combination of the price and efficiency, organization of social partnership, search and selection of educational materials most adequate for ODL, problem of the intellectual property, absence or lack of analytical sources on ODL in language of region, etc.).

The actuality of the project was highly appreciated by all experts. In the majority of the countries of examined regions the development of open and distance education, first of all at the level of higher education, is considered as one of priorities of re- form and development of national structures of vocational education, necessary condition of creation of an effective system of continued education. Consecutively, the creation of system of continued education " throughout the life " is estimated as a major factor of economic and social development of the countries of the Commonwealth, of successful transition to a market, democratic and information society, and of meeting of modern requirements. The need for the co-ordinated actions on informatization of

2 education, in development on this basis of open and distance education officially was recognized in 1996 on Council of the leaders of Governments of Commonwealth of the Independent States in Moscow, repeatedly proved to be true the next years at the meetings and conferences of the Ministers of Education of the countries of Common- wealth, including the last conference in June, 2001 in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan). Realizing necessity of development of ODL, the governments, bodies of management of education and the chiefs of educational establishments of different levels in the CIS countries at the same time push together with the whole complex of diffi- culties and problems, the successful decision any of which, as information maintenance, assumes, in particular, creation of databases and bases of knowledge in area of ODL. The experts regarded as the most important problems, or tasks (at the same time, common for all countries-partners), solving of which should be promoted by realization of the project of ODLKB, the following:  creation and development of normative base of ODL in the countries of the Com- monwealth, where the adequate normative acts and documents allowing to ensure nor- mal state regulation of open and distance education (their licensing, certification and accreditation of educational institutions, realizing ODL) have not been developed till now, and, as a consequence, its regular financing has not been foreseen; development and adoption (at a level of scientific and pedagogical communities and then at a state level) of coordinated treatments of the base terms and concepts describing a subject domain of ODL; development of the terminological standard of ODL, coordinated with the International Standard Classification of Education (UNESCO), — as necessary condition of development of its normative base, correct sociological and statistical researches, formation of common pedagogical paradigm;  development of new open models of organization of educational process in separate educational establishment and association of establishments adequate to modern ODL: i.e. based on active application of ICTs, distance educational communications, distributed educational resources, flexible educational planning, and varying educational programs;  development of the new educational standards and new educational technologies ensuring open character and high quality of education;

3  creation of new generations of the interactive multimedia educational and methodical manuals and instructional materials, formation of electronic libraries and laboratories of the distance access;  training and improvement of professional skills of staff of educational establishments for maintenance of its work in conditions of open educational systems, formation course teams, corps of tutors and managers of ODL, preparation of the experts for bodies of management of education;  organization of monitoring of quality of open and distance education in separate institutions and in regional educational structures, development of criteria of assessment of quality of ODL and definition of a rating of educational establishments;  development of telecommunication infrastructure of education, maintenance of educational establishments by modern channels of communication, telecommunication and other means necessary for ODL, by equipment, creation of Web-sites, virtual portals and representative offices of educational establishments;  working out of the projects of development of ODL in an establishment and regions;  development of partnership and cooperation between educational establishments, private and state corporations, bodies of authority and management, services of em- ployment, other subjects, entering in the international cooperation;  realization of marketing researches of needs in ODL: demand for the various distance educational programs and courses, demographic structure, interests, financial, information and telecommunication opportunities of potential students. The absence at disposal of decision-makers in the field of education of complete, authentic, tool-oriented, up-to-date and easily accessible information necessary for solving of each of these problems, results in the compelled actions with the use of a “trial and error” method, as well as in inadequate, ineffective and overdue decisions. Database and the bases of knowledge available now in the CIS countries only are partly capable to satisfy these information needs. So, by Dr V. Grebnev’s assessment, the development of ODL in the CIS countries of Central Asia has not yet accumulated sufficient experience and has no adequate databases and knowledge bases in this area. For the most part, the materials have an sporadic character and are submitted in printed paper forms. For the development of ODLKB, only few resources of state departments and establishments of high-

4 er education published in Internet can be partially used (Dr V. Grebnev listed only three address: www.gateway.kg — site of "Kyrgyzstan Development Gateway "; www.kyrgyzunvest.org — official site of "Comprehensive Development Frame- work"; www.ict.kg — site of First Summit on information technologies.). According to information by Prof. N. Pankratova, the similar situation can be observed in the CIS countries of the European part and Transcaucasia. The information about of ODL in Ukraine are concentrated basically on the sites of large establishments of higher education, their specialized structural divisions and concerns ODL-programs and courses offered by these establishments (see Appendix 1). Be- sides sites of these specialized divisions (centres, faculties and laboratories of distance education), data and analytical materials, which can be used at realization of the project of ODLKB, are put down also on the sites of International Research and Training Center UNESCO for Information Technologies and Systems (http://www.dlab.kiev.ua) and of Ukrainian Distance Learning System (http://www.udl.org.ua/ua ). However, last publications of IRTC UNESCO, placed on it site, are dated 1998, as well as information on the projects, in which the Centre participated (Copernicus Project 1445 (1995-1997), EU - DG-XIII, INCO-Copernicus 1225; STACCIS (1996-1998), and besides this data, the site does not contain any items of information or materials, which could be used at realization of the project of ODLKB. A little bit greater interest in this respect represents the site of Ukrainian Distance Learning System, created by several establishments realizing the educational programs in the field of management (the Appendix 1а): on the site, along with the instructional programs on economy and management, adistance-modular program "Professional Development in Distance Education" is offered and apparently, can find application while creation of regional ODLKB in Ukraine. The educational and research centres of the CIS countries of Transcaucasia, following the data of the expert, have no databases on ODL, except the information on the programs, offered these centres, and projects carried out also by them. As an example, Prof N. Pankratova mentioned the sites of Georgian Research Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (http://www.tech.org.ge), Georgian Centre for Information Technologies (http://www.prometric.ge/ru), and Virtual University of Armenia (educational courses "A History of the Armenian people", "Political Sci- ence", etc.) - http://www.armvu.net.

5 The level of information maintenance of development of ODL in Russia is com- paratively higher. Now already more than thirty Russian institutions of higher education have the specialized divisions of ODL, replacing correspondence branches tradi- tional for the Soviet system and informing, in this or that form, by offered programs and courses. About forty technical and vocational colleges actively participate in the program of development of distance education in system of TVE1. On sites and in various sorts of the editions of several state and independent institutions of higher learning, technical and vocational colleges, and their structural divisions it's possible to get acquainted not only with ODL-courses offered by these establishments and with the form of organization of studies, but also with their pedagogical and methodological researches in the area of ODL. For example, Moscow State University of economy, Statistics and Computer Sci- ence (MESI) issues monthly a magazine "Open Education " (till 2001 titled "Distance Education"), which electronic archives are accessible through the Internet (http://www.maoo.ru), publishes materials of the conferences organized with its parti- cipation, and seminars on of ODL. The International Institute of Management LINK also issues, since 2001, materials of its methodological seminars and conferences, publishes their proceedings and researches of other experts in problems of ODL in Russia — first of all, in the field of training to management. The Modern University for the Humanities issues monthly digest of the Russian and foreign scientific press "Virtual and Distance Learning". The Interinstitutional Centre for Distance Education of the Moscow State Open Pedagogical University (www.mgopu.ru) has begun the formation of virtual library of ODL, including works of the Russian and foreign authors, published on its site the textbook "Introduction to Distance Education " (Ovsi- annikov V., Goustyr A.).

1 The most known postsecondary educational institutions, centres of ODL in Russia are: Mo- scow State University of Economy, Statistics and Computer Science (MESI) — http://www.info.mesi.ru; International Institute of Management LINK (http://www.link.msk.ru); The Modern University for the Humanities (http://www.muh.ru/eng/info.htm), Russian Tantal Humanitarian and Technical College (HTC Tantal), transformed now into Russian Institute of Management (http://www.tantal-rim.com); Tomsk State University (http://www.tsu.ru/ru). The data of the programs of ODL, that are realized by the institutes of the system of TVE, and also an information about model of ODL, being experimentally tested in this system are available on the site of the Centre for intensive technologies of education (CITE), leading research institute develop- ing technologies of ODL for TVE in Russia ( http://www. с ito.ru ).

6 The specialized databases on ODL were created or are created in the present time in several state and non-state research institutes and centres of Russia. Two most known and visited ones are database on distance education (DE), located on site of State research institute of information technologies and telecommunications (The Centre of informatisation of Ministry of education of Russia) "Informika" (http://www.informika.ru/text/index.htm), in section "Distance Education" (http://db.informika.ru/do/), and on site of the Сentre of informational and analytical maintenance of system of distance education (СIAN) dettached to the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation — http://de.unicor.ru /. The section "Distance Education " of the site of "Informika", accompanied by the Association for International Education (AIE)2, as a whole is focused on needs of decision-makers in information maintenance of ODL. The section includes the following subsections: "Organisations of sphere of DE in Russia"; "Foreign organisations"; "The Directories and databases on DE "; "The Programs and projects"; "Conferences on DE"; "Seminars and educational programs on DE"; "Methodological base"; "Soft- ware"; "Legislative and normative base"; "Forum" Russian DE"; "Licensing of DE"; "Publications on DE"; "News" (see. Appendix 2а). Created in its present form in 1999, the site "Distance education" represents a valuable information resource, which can be used for the development of Russian ODLKB. At the same time, it cannot be considered as ready ODLKB, capable to satisfy modern information needs of decision-makers. The following could be regarded as the lacks of this site:  a low degree of updating and, accordingly, incompleteness and out-of-date character of information in the majority of sections (subsections): sections "Organisations of sphere of DE in Russia"; "Foreign organisations"; "The Directories and databases on DE", "Seminars and educational programs on DE"; "Methodical base"; "Software"; "Publications on DE" were not updated from the moment of installation of the site in 1999;  survey and reference character of the information, almost complete absence of the analysis and necessary comments: for example, the data on educational institutes in the sphere of DE in Russia do not give a clear idea about organization of educational

2 The Association for International Education , established in 1993 under the initiative of the institute "Informika", is a non-profit non-governmental organisation preoccupied with development of international collaboration in the field of education, application of innovative forms and methods of education (distance education), and integration of Russian and foreign perspective information technologies.

7 process their, used information and educational technologies, structure of educational programs, quality of education, structure of the corps of students and their amount; the section "The Directories and databases on DE" contains only very brief summaries of databases and reference sources, at which the references are given, and is reduced in a result to their list. The same can be said about data in other sections. Thus, section "Publications..." proposes in fact only list of names of the Russian and foreign magazines, more or less devoted to problems of ODL, almost without the comments and with refer to the sites of their publishers. Section "Legislative and normative base" is a list of orders of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation relating to informatization of education and ODL and allowing to get acquainted with the texts, but not complemented by any analysis. As a result, the site in as the rule, en- larges a range of data and sources known for the user, but do not allow estimating their importance: the rating of educational institutions, reliability of recommended knowledge bases and databases, quality of periodics, calibre and repute of conferences, etc. Because of uncertainty of criteria of selection of data, n important question of their completeness remains open, too.  Absence of a number of necessary sections: there is no unit devoted to models of organization of educational process in ODL, analysis of their efficiency (quality of education, profitability); there are no data and even the references to sources allowing to estimate economic and the financial aspects of ODL on the whole and of its separate components (used ICTs and channels, development of an educational course, preparation of special pedagogical and administrative staff etc.); there are no data about needs for ODL, most claimed educational programs and courses, dynamics of demand on educational services of ODL, communication opportunities and level of paying ca- pacity of potential and already learning students. As to the structure and contents of database on of ODL of CIAN (Appendix 2в), it is similar to the database of "Informika", in fact duplicates it and has the same lacks. The database of CIAN is advantageous in regard of a greater concreteness of information concerning ICTs used in education (subsection "Tool means of maintenance of educational activity") and specialized printed and electronic editions (subsection "Informational a. analytical and marketing maintenance of system of open education"). A subsection on marketing of ODL is titled, but any information on the market of ODL is unavailable.

8 Among other specialized information Internet-resources for ODL in Russian, which can be used for creation of ODLKB, it’s necessary to point out the Web-site of the joint project of Tacis and the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation DELPHI, finalized in November, 2001 (the Tacis Project on the Development of Educational Links and Professional and Higher Education Initiatives — DELPHI/EDRUS 9706. /http: //www.delphi.ru/), within the framework of fourth components of which (Component IV: Open and Distance Learning) during three last years the preparation of tutors and managers was carried out and educational materials for of ODL in Russia were developed; a site of the Russian State Institute of Open Education, established in April, 2001 (http://www.openet.ru/University.nsf/In- dex.htm), leading organization of the program of the Ministry of Education "Creation of system of open education of Russia"; site of Moscow institute of improvement of professional skills of the employees of educational system — MIPKRO (http://www.educom.ru) and site of the Centre for intensive technologies of education — CITE (http://www.cito.ru). On the DELPHI site, the information on educational courses for ODL developed within the framework of the project is located, including the electronic version of course "Management in Distance Education ", which can be directly used for creation of ODLKB; database about the experts of the project (managers, authors of manuals) and about five regional DELPHI centres in Russia. The site of the Russian State In- stitute of Open Education contains the information on the program "Creation of Sys- tem of Open Education of Russia" and course of its realization: development of integrated informational and educational environment of Russia, representing a network of virtual portals with opening virtual representations of educational institutes, working on the basis of the standard software ("LOTUS"). The site of MIPKRO submits a small distance courses about application of information technologies in education, which can be included in ODLKB. On the site of CIET the results of the projects in the field of researches and development of ODL, accomplished by the Centre are published: the analysis of the basic terms, concepts and glossaries on ODL; the comparat- ive analysis of synchronous group (American) and asynchronous individual (British) models of DE, description and analysis of the model of Open University of United Kingdom (OUUK), adapted to the Russian conditions, with the developed complete set of normative and educational and methodical materials; the analysis and practical materials for organization of monitoring of ODL in the system of TVE; results of two-

9 years experiment on practical realization of ODL in the system of TVE; results of sociological researches (1998/99) of needs of ODL development of the directors of TVE institutes; the programs and textbooks for preparation of tutors and managers of ODL. There are also published printed materials, which can be used for formation of ODLKB. The greatest interest in this respect represents a summary informational and analytical report "State-of-the-art, Needs and Perspectives of the Development of Dis- tance Education in Russia and Abroad" (Appendix 3) prepared in 1999 by IITE and CIAN and published in 2001 by MGOPU. This report, based on the reports on different directions prepared by a group of experts from a number of institutions of higher education, research centres and public organizations, contains analysis (most detailed for today) of needs and problems in development of DE in Russia, basing on sociological research, review of the basic centres, organizations and projects in the field of open and distance education in foreign countries. The development of information maintenance of ODL in Russia is supposed, as one of directions, by the program "Creation of system of open education of Russia", authorized by the Ministry of Education at the end of 2000.

As a result, we can establish a fact that there are noticeable differences regarding levels and status of information maintenance of ODL in Russia and in other CIS countries. In the countries of the European part of the Commonwealth including Ukraine, and Transcaucasia, and in the countries of the Asian part (first of all, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan) information about ODL in essence is limited to information about ODL- courses and programs, offered by some institutions of higher education, and in Russia there are specialized institutes and databases of ODL, and informational and analytical materials are accumulated and can be used for formation of ODLKB. The development of databases and knowledge bases is planned within the framework of creation and development of System of Open Education of Russia and of integrated informational and educational environment. However, as a whole, existing Russian databases and knowledge bases, including best of them, can be qualified as initial, preliminary, and not sufficient for satisfying information needs of decision-makers. The lacks of these available information resources mentioned above (low degree of updating, re- viewing and not tool character, fragmentariness, absence of necessary information on management, economy, marketing of ODL) — make them as a whole insufficient

10 both for taking up of the decisions in the field of management of ODL and for maintenance of necessary staff development. Thus, in expert’s opinion, the need for creation of regional ODLKB as the integrated information resources of new generation comparable to the best databases and knowledge bases of ODL in English (for example, Global Distance Educationet of World Bank, databases and knowledge bases of International Centre for Distance Learning (ICDL) in OUUK or of Commonwealth of Learning) remains one of the most urgent needs of information maintenance and, as a whole, of development of ODL in the CIS countries.