Keywords: Project Management Education; PMI Curriculum; Project Based Teaching;
In this paper we present our results from the implementation of an introductory course in Project Management (PM) at two universities in two countries Bulgaria and USA. We integrated Curriculum and Resources from Beta version of the curriculum guidelines that offers 30 knowledge modules to pick and choose topics and learning outcomes from and a comprehensive term project for a PM-1 foundational course. We adapted the topics for our individual courses in different ways to teach PM to our undergraduate students, but we used the same capstone term guide. Our research indicates that students did very well in mastering the technical knowledge modules but had difficulty in grasping the behavioral knowledge modules like communication. For future instructors we provide recommendations to improve teaching of PM to undergraduates.
More...Keywords: design patterns; software patterns; software motives; lexical analyzers; most frequent substrings;
The paper describes part of the work dedicated to create a system for extraction of the business logic from legacy software code. The main conception is to reverse the approach for specification of software well known as Design Patterns Approach and to use it to transform the code in design patterns. Important preliminary step of converting code to patterns is to identify essential patterns parts called design motives. The paper presents the architecture of a software system for extraction of design motives, than discuss used algorithms and some preliminary results. The target programming language of the system is COBOL but the concepts are applicable for different other programming languages, too.
More...Keywords: English language e-testing; dynamic questions; parameterization; automatic test generation; Wolfram Mathematica;
This paper concerns the use of the computer algebra system Wolfram Mathematica for aiding the process of generating English language test questions. The presented methods make it possible to generate a large set of equivalent dynamic questions of a certain topic/subtopic based on a small amount of input values. This results in achievements such as reduced time consumption during tests authoring, application of equal criteria, fair assessment and decreased influence of subjective factors. This work is a further development of previous results of the authors, successfully implemented and used in DisPeL (Distributed Platform for e-Learning).
More...Keywords: interactive learning; e-learning; educational technology;
The use of the information technologies in all spheres of life leads to demands for new forms of teaching, learning and appropriate examination and evaluation of acquired knowledge and skills of the students. In this work it is developed a methodological approach of a blended educational system in Mathematics and IT for pharmaceutical students at the Medical University – Plovdiv. The system allows the entire course to be held interactively. The relevance of e-learning environments nowadays and the need of modernization of the educational courses are the main reasons for the usage and the integration of this form of teaching more and more. In this work it is designed a model for an educational platform of a university discipline which can be applied in other teaching courses.
More...Keywords: Human Computer Interaction; Learning Management System; Blackboard Learn; Web-based Distance Education Environment; Online Learning; Web User Interface; User Satisfaction;
This study is a working research paper to evaluate user satisfaction experienced in using the user interface of Blackboard Learn, which is a web-based platform for delivering online courses. The study focuses on evaluation criteria including ease of use of the course user interface, usefulness of the user interface and clarity in design of the user interface.
More...Keywords: Project Management Education; PMI Curriculum; Managing projects;
In this paper we introduce the new Project Management Curriculum and Resources effort from Project Management Institute (PMI) and describe how the IT PM curricula can benefit from it. The PMI Curriculum framework is a major milestone and contributes to the growing research base on project management education and curriculum design. The authors participated in the development process and outline the new curriculum guidelines in this paper. They also summarize the history of the development of the curriculum guidelines which was designed “by academics for academics.” This research paper also illustrates how the varying needs of IT or Software Project PM Curriculum at universities can be accommodated by the dynamic and flexible architecture of the curriculum guidelines.
More...Keywords: De notational semantics; axiomatic semantics; abstract interpretation; legacy systems; reverse engineering;
Programs contain precise low-level instructions on performing computational processes, but source code itself rarely provides a high-level insight of the intentions of the programmer. In cases where documentation is missing or incomplete, maintenance of a software system can be extremely challenging. Reverse engineering is the process of inferring high-level features of the program semantics, including architecture, domain-specific concepts, and the functional and logical relations between them. In the present paper we explore methods for extracting declarative properties of programs that are not necessarily written in a declarative style by application of formal approaches to program semantics. We examine methods and techniques based on axiomatic-style and denotational-style semantics and highlight their advantages and disadvantages with respect to practical program extraction.
More...Keywords: networks; education; learning methods;
The implementation of „Blended Learning” is an approach to supplement the traditional classroom teaching with „E-Learning“ aspects. So that the new methods not overwhelm but promote, the share of Online-Education has to be planned in the right measure. The practical learning will be offered in customized and modernized exercises which supports the work in a group. Learning in the group provides opportunities for online-based work and paves the process of „independent learning“. The discussion skills and other „soft skills“ are advanced through accompanying forms of feedback and „peer review“ to constructively deal with others opinions and settings. The reflection of learning objectives hopes to achieve an increased motivation of students and also teachers.
More...Keywords: Learning outcomes; Assessments; Curriculum Design; Computer Science Education;
In this paper we describe the process used by MET Computer Science to identify programs, goals, and student learning outcomes for all our programs and graduate certificates. We illustrate how we started the process of assessing learning outcomes for all our programs and present actual results from the data collected for two programs that went through accreditation--it describes data from indirect assessment of two programs.
More...Keywords: IT Project; Business Analysis; Strategy Analysis; Business Process; Technical Specification; Business Analysis Tools and Techniques; Business Analysis Professional Certifications;
This paper presents an educational approach for the development of a graduate course on‘Business Analysis in IT Project Management’. Based on a critical review of the latest professional trends and global standards in the field of business analysis: a) the purpose and the need of the learning approach for IT practitioners is defined, and b) course structure containing selected analytical tools and techniques is outlined. The educational approach addresses the needs of IT Practitioners to better understand the IIBA Business Analysis Core Concept Model and become prepared to bring more business value to the enterprise as business analysts. The selected analytical tools and techniques are incorporated in the course curricula and demonstrated with the help of a business running case, introduced by knowledge areas as follows: strategy analysis (the business model canvas and balanced scorecard); requirements analysis and design definition (UML, BPMN, ROI); solution evaluation (metrics and KPIs). The role of the business running case is not only to demonstrate the nature and the purpose of the selected tools and techniques, but also to spell out the connection between them and the logical sequence of steps in the process of business analysis. This paper discusses how this new course is harmonized with the needs of the New Bulgarian University, Department of Computer Science, “IT Project Management” Master’s program and why it should be offered in all management related graduate programs.
More...Keywords: Computer science education; Computer engineering education; Model curricula; Project based learning;
This paper describes one approach to preparing professionals for IT sector at university level with better practical experience, ready to be involved in career easier and with less stress. The approach presented is a result of one European project and combines the efforts of business and university representatives. It starts with the survey for IT sector profile and employers’ expectations about the competences of the graduates, continues through a conceptual model, curricula and reflects on the educational practice as new teaching strategies. One of the most important practical component is education through developing project in near real environment that gives students motivation and confidence for the further carrier.
More...Keywords: e-CF; CEN ICT profiles; e-leadership; IT Project Management; education methods and tools;
NBU M.Sc. IT PM programme curricula builds upon the insights gathered by mapping the content of its courses and modules to the e-CF competences, to the CEN ICT profiles and e-Leadership profiles. The programme curricula is designed to match five CEN ICT managerial profiles and adhere to the European guidelines and quality labels for new curricula fostering e-Leadership skills. The students' perception of the acquired knowledge and skills is compared to the programme goals. The programme design is critically analyzed against the students' self-assessed initial and final e-CF profiles. Further curricula improvement opportunities are identified and discussed.
More...Boston University Metropolitan College Computer Science Department has offered a popular enterprise architecture course for computer students for over 6 years. Students who concentrate in project management are required to take this course. The prerequisite is a good working understanding of systems architecture as evidenced by succeeding in CS 682 Systems Analysis and Design. The learning outcomes include the ability to identify operating models and plan IT projects to support their evolution, the ability to create and update enterprise architectures, and the ability to manage their implementation through project governance mechanisms that align projects with the enterprise architecture. The course assignments include individual assignments and five challenging group problem-solving workshops. The course includes a mandatory capstone project that involves the definition of and implementation plan for significant enterprise architectures. Term projects have included major improvements to the enterprise architectures of large organizations, with net present values in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. We will present capstone projects to illustrate the transferable skills students acquire in the course. We will also describe the roles of the course in the computer science and information systems curricula.
More...Keywords: OCR; Convolutional neural networks; Projection profile; Gaussian filter; Otsu‘s image segmentation method; Scanline flood fill
The character segmentation and recognition in a scanned document is a part of OCR (Optical Character Recognition), which deals with the problem of digitalization of text in a scanned document. The realization of the software is done by binarizing the image, analyzing the horizontal projection histogram to separate the lines, then separating the characters from each line by analyzing the vertical projection histogram of each line and passing each character to a neural network to be recognized. We are making this research in order to test our ideas for approaching the problem of OCR. There are many documents being digitalized nowadays in different languages and in the field of OCR, there is a lot more potential, which has yet to be researched.
More...Keywords: Distributed database; Blockchain; Personal data; Privacy
The educational system in Bulgaria covers twelve grades. The quality of the education is measured at the end of the academic year. Students take written exams in the fourth, seventh and twelfth grade. The evaluation of these exams is concerned with a lot of paper work and documents exchange. The results of the evaluation should be provided to the authorities in a secure and reliable way. With the modern blockchain a school-based distributed computing environment can be created and many of the current difficulties can be overcome. By design, a blockchain is resistant to data modification and provides security and data integrity. In order to create such a blockchain each school has to support a blockchain based peer in its IT infrastructure. The Ministry of Education will be able to access all relevant data in a convenient and secure way. The blockchain technology will prevent manipulation of test results. Reliable information can be provided for interested institutions such as universities and potential employers. In this paper possibilities for blockchain implementation in schools which leads to improvement of Bulgarian school educational system are discussed..
More...Keywords: Bell-Lankaster method ; Micro IT project; Educational context
Micro IT projects are considered an educational innovation in the context of undergraduate education at department Computer Science at New Bulgarian University. The management of micro IT project in the educational context is challenging from organizational and academic point of view. This paper presents the introduction of Bell-Lancaster method into the practical curriculum at under-graduate and graduate levels from educational and from management perspective. The discussion covers the micro IT projects practicum set-up, the learning outcomes, the success rate of the projects and the students’ feedback. The pilot started in 2013/2014 with two teams, now it is scaled up to than 23 teams with more than 80 participants.
More...Keywords: LP probleml; Representative sample
Empirical analyses usually estimate the effect of some variables, considered as independent, on one (or more), considered as dependend. It is rare situation to have the whole population available for the analysis. Then, usually a subsample is chosen and the conclusions are generalized to the whole population. This approach is based on the concept that the sample represents, in some meaning the population. If a sample is large enough and the selection process is random, usually the sample is considered to be representative one. However in some cases the sample should satisfy some restrictions on selected characteristics, which are previously known for the population. Here we propose an approach to this problem as a solution of a task of integer linear programming.
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