Saratov, 2004


REGIONAL PROGRAM
“DEVELOPMENT OF THE NETWORK OF SSU BRANCHES IN SARATOV REGION (2004-2009)”




The Essence of the Problem and the Reason Why It Should Be Solved Using Program Methods

The Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees the right of its citizens to education, which is available to all and free of charge. However, under the conditions of the real socio-economic situation, these guarantees are not always fully secured.
For this very reason, the attainment of equal access to various levels of education by all Russian citizens, their place of residence and their level of income notwithstanding, and according to state-prescribed educational standards which guarantee the quality of education needed by society, is among the priorities of the Plan for educational modernization up to the year 2010.


The necessity for acquiring deep and adequate knowledge is dictated by the conditions of a dynamically changing world, by global interdependence and competition, by the need for a large-scale deployment of information technologies. The contents and quality of education, its accessibility, its compliance with the individual needs of a person define in a decisive manner the state of the intellectual potential of modern society. An intensive development of the educational sphere based on the use of information and communication technologies is becoming one of the most important national priorities.


The problem of it being difficult for schoolchildren and young people living far from centers of higher education to realize the possibility of getting a quality education is especially acute. Their striving toward receiving a quality secondary education, the objective need for improving and learning new skills, meets with serious financial problems. The remoteness from the center of the region, where the higher education institutions are situated, makes it impossible for many strata of the population to continue their education. The majority of young people, however, and above all the graduates of secondary schools, strive toward leaving their place of residence to receive higher education, and, as a rule, they do not come back, which leads to a lack of professionals at the local level.


It is necessary, then, to urgently work out a complex of measures for overcoming the current negative situation, based, above all, on information technologies and distant learning, which is the most important component of the nascent system of open education.
The weakest, yet a very important link in the system of open education are secondary schools and secondary vocational schools situated at a distance from the region’s center. Practice shows that the use of information technologies and the Internet in schools is still quite limited and very loosely connected with the learning process. Distant learning of schoolchildren is virtually non-existent.


Saratov State University began developing distant learning technologies more than 5 years ago. The key element of the proposed system of distant learning is a branch of Saratov State University. A branch is a territorially separate structural unit of the university, situated outside its location (as per state registration), which represents and defends the interests of the SSU and is not authorized to carry out its own educational, academic, business or other activities.


As of the present moment, a large experience of organizing the educational activities of the system of SSU branches within the system of correspondence courses has been accumulated. The educational activities based on the academic and material resources of the branches are carried out by regular staff members of the SSU with the purpose of assisting students who are taking correspondence courses to cope with educational programs directly at their place of residence.


A branch is created with the assent of the educational authority of the region of the Russian Federation on whose territory the branch is situated, provided that the necessary educational resources and informational and social support which is up to the standard demanded from educational institutions of the Russian Federation, are present.
As of today, Saratov State University has 11 branches in Atkarsk, Balakovo, Baltay, Marx, Petrovsk and other cities and settlements of Saratov region.




Among the main activities of SSU branches, already practiced as well as planned, are the following:

1. The branches fully support the realization of the university’s educational mission in the region. They serve as promoters of its policy in the field of culture, science and modern information technologies. The branches make it possible to bring higher education closer to people who live in provinces, to make it more accessible.




2. The branches are to become the centers of selection of the most qualified and promising secondary school graduates with the purpose of sending them to study in the region’s center as a part of special enrolment program.




3. The branches are not only student learning centers, but function as local educational centers. The computer classes created by the SSU are not only used for specialist training, but also for lessons for schoolchildren and computer literacy courses. Creating specialized classes in schools is worked upon. The SSU branches are able to give momentum to improving the quality of secondary education in rural areas. Specifically, it is planned to open virtual lab centers on the base of the branches, which will occupy themselves with the exact disciplines of general secondary education.




4. The SSU branches are important elements of the infrastructure of distant learning. Saratov University actively supports the process of developing the material and technical resources: the computer equipment of the branches has been renewed at the expense of the local budgets, they have been provided with the Internet access, and the attendants have been given training.
Should the program “Development of the Network of SSU Branches in Saratov Region (2004-2009)”, developed by Saratov State University and the Ministry of Education of Saratov region, be accepted, it would allow to introduce new courses in the branches, to expand the network of existing branches, to conduct a systematic policy of opening gymnasia classes under the umbrella of SSU and to turn the SSU branches into centers of distant learning, which will endow the regional educational policy with a new quality and dynamism.





Goals, Aims, Terms and Stages of the Program’s Implementation


The goals of the Program are the creation and development of a united network of SSU branches, which will ensure:




· unity of educational space throughout the whole region


· improvement of the quality of education in all districts of Saratov region


· preservation, development and effective deployment of the region’s academic and educational potential

· creation of conditions for a step-by-step transition to a new level of education based on information technologies


· access of the whole population of the region to educational services




Aims of the Program:




1.Creation of an optimal network of SSU branches, including:




· monitoring society’s interest toward various educational programs of higher and secondary vocational education


· creation and development of gymnasia intensive study classes under the umbrella of SSU and organizing preparatory courses for school graduates




2. Formation of an informational and technological infrastructure of education, including:


· creation of a regional system of informational and academic support of educational development


· creation of a lab center specializing in the exact disciplines of general secondary education on the base of SSU, which will allow the region’s schoolchildren who have chosen to specialize in exact sciences to conduct experimental work of their own according to the state requirements toward educational programs.


· providing SSU branches on the base of educational institutions with computers, means of access to global informational resources, general and applied software and means of technical support

3. Use of information and telecommunication technologies in the learning process, including:


· creation and introduction into the learning process of higher, secondary vocational, and secondary education of modern electronic means of its support and development


· development of means of informational and technological support and development of the learning process

· ensuring the quality of electronic means of support and development of the learning process by their standardization and certification


· training of pedagogic, administrative and technical personnel of educational institutions that is able to deploy the latest information technologies in the learning process.




The first stage (2004) will be devoted to the formation of a complete network of SSU branches and to surveying society’s needs for various educational services, to the improvement of the branches’ material and technical resources and to the realization, on the base of the existing computer classes, of pilot projects on virtual lab works.


The second stage (2005-2006) – development of the strategy and methodology of the Program’s realization, organization of a regional system of informational and academic support of education, providing the branches with means of access to informational and educational resources, development of modern electronic learning materials and testing thereof, development of programs, study plans and materials, improvement of skills and retraining of pedagogic, administrative and technical personnel, establishing the status of a lab center and its provision with material and technical resources.


The third stage (2006-2009) – completion of providing educational institutions with informatization facilities, full functioning of virtual and local lab centers for mastering
the exact disciplines of general secondary education, organization of technical support system, development and dissemination of electronic learning materials,
improvement of skills and retraining of pedagogic, administrative and technical personnel, creation of a system of open education based on distant learning technologies.




System of Program Measures

1. Creation of an Optimal Network of SSU Branches

The appendix contains a map of Saratov region with functioning and due-to-be-opened SSU branches. At the first stage it is necessary, by way of monitoring, to create a distribution of humanitarian and exact disciplines according to the interests of the population. Programs of higher, as well as secondary vocational and secondary education (for gymnasia classes) must be used here.




2. Development of information technologies in the field of education


At the first and second stages of the Program’s realization, requirements toward electronic means of support and development of the learning process will be worked out and ratified.
The development of electronic means of support and development of the learning process will be organized according to the levels of education (general secondary, primary vocational, secondary vocational, higher professional).
SSU needs to put the creation of electronic libraries into motion. The broad use of new information technologies has formed the necessary prerequisites for the creation of electronic libraries as means of accumulation and dissemination of informational and educational resources.


Within the electronic libraries created within the framework of the present Program, thematic databases of educational, reference, illustrative and catalogued materials are being put together in order to allow specified search and free access via global networks.
The principles of organization of the electronic libraries should ensure the possibility of accumulation, storage and access to various resources (from textual to multimedia resources), as well as modeling programs designed to function in various software environments.


The limited possibilities of educational institutions when it comes to acquiring information is a factor which impedes the development of the educational system, preventing the academic and pedagogic potential from being fully employed to solve current problems in the field of education.


To solve this problem, the Program’s list of measures includes the realization of a number of investment projects on the base of the SSU with the aim of creating a system of general educational and specialized portals.


In the course of the Program’s realization, an informational and manufacturing base is being created in SSU for the development and distribution of electronic learning materials (electronic textbooks and reference books, encyclopedias, videos, multimedia instruments, testing tools, etc.) for individual and collective forms of learning. The creation of electronic learning materials using modern technologies implies the combined work of highly trained, specially prepared professionals – pedagogic scholars, teachers, programmers, designers, script writers, psychologists, etc. Therefore, the task of creating electronic learning materials demands a search for new organizational forms of such work.
In the course of the Program’s realization, corporative information systems, directed at raising the efficiency of the educational system’s management at all its levels, will be created.


To support the aims set forth in the Program, complexes of virtual lab practices in the exact disciplines of the general secondary education curriculum will be developed in the SSU, complete with manuals. A provision ruling the lab center's activities and the procedure of transporting the region’s schoolchildren for conducting lab practices, will be drawn up; the center will be provided with a complete list of lab practices in accordance with state requirements toward educational programs. Creation of a re-training and skill-raising center for the region’s teachers on the base of the lab center is also possible.
The creation of a system of network testing control for distant learning is envisaged as part of the work aimed at the creation of an informational and educational environment.
A set of documents and materials is being created that ensures the individual learning of those willing to receive their education by way of external studies.




The organization of the system of distant learning includes:


· working out the principles and mechanisms of the collective work of territorially separate user groups in order to organize a unified learning process


· development and deployment of multifunctional integrated information systems on different platforms


· ensuring the interactivity of the learning process


· creation of regional and university centers for collective use of unique lab equipment via remote access




In the process of the modernization of education, the renewal of its contents, of the methods and forms of organizing the learning process, a list of the necessary electronic means of learning is formed, their integration with the traditional means of learning taken into account. The development of electronic learning materials should be based on the latest technologies which make it possible to attain such pedagogic ends that are impossible to reach by traditional methods. Inclusion of these learning materials into the modern school’s learning process will ensure an effective use of the computers and telecommunications equipment with which schools are provided.


In order to create a pedagogically effective informational and educational environment, materials will be created and tested for an educational portal that should contain, in electronic form, textbooks, problem books, methodic materials, reference books, developing games, materials for intensive study of foreign languages, tests, diagnostic materials, modules for higher pedagogic education, etc.


Creation of electronic learning materials and means of support of the learning process which take into account national and regional peculiarities, is envisaged within the framework of the Program.


The learning complex may include an electronic textbook, a school multimedia encyclopedia or other reference materials, a set of electronic lab practices, a training complex for individual work, a test and control complex, as well as methodic materials for teachers.




The lists of electronic learning materials and methodic complexes in the disciplines of secondary vocational education are formed on the basis of:

· priority support of the invariant disciplines from the list of the educational programs of higher and secondary vocational education


· analysis of the peculiarities of purpose, the formation of content and the specifics of practical skills in various disciplines


· need for middle- and high-level professionals in various fields




A significant number of electronic learning materials should be produced by the forces of the SSU according to the state standards for higher vocational education, and considered by academic and methodic unions in the prescribed manner.

Raising of skill and professional re-training of pedagogic, administrative and technical personnel.

With the aim of raising the qualification of pedagogic, administrative and technical personnel, learning programs for those engaged in new information and telecommunication technologies are being prepared by SSU branches. These include:


· administrative and managing personnel, including the heads and specialists of local (municipal) educational authorities, the heads of methodic services, the heads of educational institutions


· teachers, faculty and technical personnel of general educational and educational institutions


· masters, teachers of elementary classes, practical psychologists in special (correctional) institutions




To boost the execution of the program for the raising of skill of said workers, the training of multiplier teachers (tutors) is envisaged.
The raising of skill and professional re-training of teachers must include not only computer courses, but also the acquisition of new teaching methods. They must be of a practical kind, aimed at using the experience of practical use of information and telecommunication technologies, as well as planning the informational educational environment of an institutions or a type of institution.
Of particular import is the training of coordinators of skill-raising programs in the field of information technologies, the formation of a structure of managing the learning process and the methodic support of pedagogic staff,
In order to make the training of program coordinators the most effective, it will be carried out using intensive trainings and special seminars directly on the base of SSU.
The Ministry of education of Saratov region will produce annual plans for the raising of skill and professional re-training of pedagogic, administrative and technical personnel both in the SSU and in its branches in the region’s districts.




Providing educational institutions with informatization facilities

The principles of providing educational institutions with means of information and telecommunication technologies are determined by:


· the complex character of using means of information and telecommunication technologies in different fields of the learning process


· the rapid change in the nomenclature of informatization facilities, the technical characteristics of devices, the emergence of fundamentally new models which significantly broaden the educational use of information and telecommunication technologies


· significant degree of difference in the readiness of various educational institutions to use information and telecommunication technologies


· high prices and rapid depreciation of the facilities of information and telecommunication technologies




The composition of said facilities which are shipped to educational institutions, is determined by the aims and development plans of the educational programs carried out by the branch.
It is planned, already at the first stage, to supply the branches with informatization facilities and to ensure the maximum expansion of students’, schoolchildren’s and teacher’s access to meaningful and pedagogically effective net resources and technologies. In individual cases, it will be possible to supply schools in outlying districts with mobile complexes that will make possible practical lessons in physics, chemistry, information technology, biology, foreign language (in a computer class).


For the students to work effectively, it is expedient to supply the branches not with single computers, but with computers united into a local-area network. It is planned to create learning complexes including the object of research, the means of connecting with a computer, the computer itself and software and methodic facilities for different levels of education and in different fields of study. Only the numbers of shipped equipment and computers may vary, within the minimal level, according to the quantity of students. Educational institutions with intensive study of subjects are supplied with learning equipment on an extended basis.


Taking into account that the task of equipping the branches with informatization facilities is quite complicated and time-consuming, they will, according to the Program, be provided at the first stage only with the minimum necessary informatization facilities, and only those subjects and disciplines whose study requires modern computers will be taken into account.
At the same time, the branches must be made ready to receive and accommodate the supplied equipment in accordance with special requirements towards the accommodation of computers.


Creation of automatized lab practices in general, as well as special profile disciplines, is planned.
The SSU branches must become a source of informational and educational services for general educational institutions and institutions for elementary and secondary vocational education.

Resources for the Program

The Program will be carried out at the expense of the regional budget, the budgets of united municipal formations of Saratov region, the off-budget resources of SSU received in exchange for educational services, as well as by attracting sponsors, Russian and foreign investment projects in the field of distant learning.
The most significant expenses fall on the years 2004-2007, that is, on the period of development and distribution of electronic learning materials and of the formation of an educational informational environment itself.
It is planned to finance, at the expense of the budgets of united municipal formations, the measures in whose realization individual districts of Saratov region are interested. This includes the raising of skill of the pedagogic personnel, the support of telecommunications infrastructure, technical support of computer equipment, supplying the branches with informatization facilities, development of telecommunications facilities. It is planned to finance, at the expense of the off-budget resources, the creation of electronic learning materials, the training and re-training of workers in the field of information technologies, the creation and support of inter-school computer centers. Off-budget sources will be attracted in due order on the grounds of signing special agreements.




The mechanism of Program implementation

The mechanism of the realization of the Program presupposes the annual compilation of the following documents:


· the list of primary tasks included into the Program’s system of measures, indicating the executors, sources and amount of financing


· the coordination plan of the cooperation of the Ministry of Education of Saratov region with Saratov State University




SSU:

· works out an annual plan of measures defining the specific works, the expenses needed for each measure (with substantiating calculations) and the sources of their financing (separate for each source and year)


· organizes and carries out a competitive selection of the executors of specific work on the measures list in accordance with the laws of the Russian Federation
To ensure the coordination of the realization of the Program throughout the whole of Saratov region, a Coordination Council will be established consisting of representatives of the Ministry of Education and Saratov State University.




Management and control of the Program implementation

The organizational and methodic management of the realization of the Program is carried out jointly by the Ministry of Education of Saratov region and Saratov State University.




The Coordination Council:


· determines the interim stages of the realization of the Programs, their aims and deadlines


· estimates the amount of financial resources necessary for the realization of the Program and its separate projects


· considers the matter of assigning budget means to the project executors and controls their proper and effective use


· organizes, in the prescribed manner, competitions and the expert examination of the Program’s projects


· receives the completed works on the Program




The current management of the realization of the Program, the organizational and technical support of state contracts and the informational and analytical support are carried out by the Office for distant learning and branch supervision of SSU, and by the respective department for higher and secondary vocational education. The control of the realization of the Program is exercised by the Ministry of Education of Saratov region and Saratov State University.
The course of the Program’s execution and measures is examined at the board sessions of the Ministry of Education of Saratov region and at the sessions of the Academic Council of SSU. The interim and fianl results of work on the projects are considered with the participation of the academic and pedagogic community.




The expected final results

As a result of the realization of the Program, the foundations of a united educational informational environment in Saratov region will be laid, which environment will make it possible, through the system of SSU branches:




· to lay the foundations of a common system of the informational and methodic support of the development of education


· to raise the quality of education in educational institutions, including those remote from methodic centers, through organizing the access of said institutions to common educational resources, the rational use of highly qualified staff, the training of specialists in the field of new information technologies for each educational institution


· to develop and introduce into the learning process of higher, secondary vocational and secondary education the modern electronic means of support of the learning process, to organize the distribution of electronic learning materials in the basic disciplines of general education (physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, history, geography, etc.) and to integrate them with the traditional learning facilities


· to create online testing software


· to organize on the base of the SSU branches electronic libraries of learning materials and to provide access to the educational resources contained therein


· to create a lab center for experimental work in the exact disciplines of general secondary education for schoolchildren, and for the raising of skill of the region’s teachers.


· to organize a system of open education, including interactive distant learning technologies for educational institutions of various levels, and to realize the possibility of personalization by way of creating and realizing individual educational trajectories


· to create a system of methodic support of teachers from educational institutions of all levels, to train and re-train pedagogic, administrative and technical personnel in the field of new information technologies


· to create a database of normative documents on the standardization in the field of education, open education, including distant learning, of information technologies, informational support of education, telecommunications networks, open systems, systems of data transfer, storage and processing, and to form the conception of informational security of the educational environment




This Program should become an important stage in the modernization of education in Saratov region. Taking into account the already achieved results, suggestions on organizing further work on the development of education based on new technologies up to 2015 will be prepared.