UPGRADE: Vol. VII, Issue no. 4, August 2006 (The Bologna Process and The Informatics Profession)

The Bologna Process and The Informatics Profession

Published on behalf of CEPIS by Novática (ATI, Spain)

Chief Editor: Llorenç Pagés-Casas, <pages AT ati DOT es>

Associate Editors:

François Louis Nicolet, <nicolet AT acm DOT org>; Roberto Carniel, <rcarniel AT dgt DOT uniud DOT it>; Zakaria Maamar, <Zakaria DOT Maamar AT zu DOT ac DOT ae>; Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui, <soraya DOT kouadrimostefaoui AT unifr DOT ch>, Rafael Fernández Calvo, <rfcalvo AT ati DOT es>.

Abstract: A new IT profession, with an open Chartered award as its "Gold Standard" and a new Professionalism Alliance between four leading IT industry bodies - just two of the announcements at a recent conference in London. Charles Hughes, President of the British Computer Society explains the background to the announcements and what they mean for the future of the profession.

Abstract: The European higher education convergence process that Spain is currently immersed in along with the rest the Bologna Process signatory states provides us with an excellent opportunity to build a better university and train better professionals. In this article the author voices a number of concerns and identifies areas for improvement which need to be addressed if we are to achieve that goal. He also makes a plea for the social recognition of our profession and stresses the importance of the role it plays within the ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) sector.

Abstract: The current situation of Computer Science studies in Spain and most European countries has been affected by the Bologna Process which aims to establish a European Higher Education Area by 2010. This paper provides an overview of the situation in Spain and explains how the Spanish system is adopting the Bologna agreement and the new credit system at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels..

Abstract: The goal of a European Higher Education Space started few years ago, starting from Paris and passing for the 1998 Bologna declaration, till the meeting of Bergen in 2005. This process, taking into account four main key issues (Threecycle Structure; European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System; Diploma Supplement; Quality Assurance), is in course of implementation in a growing number of European countries but with several differences, due to cultural and historical reasons. This paper presents the Italian situation in the light of current laws and regulations and proposes results based upon the Bologna Scorecard gathered last year in Bergen and shows possible improvement points for the next few years.

Abstract: This paper attempts to put into perspective the Bologna process in the context of the Netherlands. It shares some experiences made by some Dutch universities in the past five years. The paper maintains the view that the Bologna process has so far contributed little to the convergence of European higher education systems, but has supported important national reforms in the Netherlands.

Abstract: With the 1999 declaration of Bologna the 29 European signatory nations intended to harmonize higher education in Europe thereby introducing modern concepts e.g. the modularisation and quality assurance of courses of study, Bachelor and Master programs, a comprehensible system of credit point quantitation of student’s efforts to attend and complete the modules. In many European countries those modernisation concepts were not easy to start because of the historical particularities of each country. Therefore, this paper picks out the example of the Federal Republic of Germany, describes the historical point of departure in harmonizing higher education and tries to mirror its evolution in Computer Science studies in recent years supported by respective normative references. Finally, the paper gives an overview of the latest related developments, according to what has become known as the Bologna-process, which are aligned with enabling regulations for German higher education.

Abstract: The aim of the pilot scheme is to put in place a number of working methodologies in order to move towards the new European model of higher education. This new model encourages teaching based on teacher directed academic activities that teach the student how to learn. In the academic year 2005/06, the Escuela Politécnica Superior of the Universidad de Huelva introduced an ECTS pilot scheme in the first year of Technical Computer Engineering in the specialities of Data Processing and Systems. In this paper we will be describing the activities carried out during the implementation of this pilot scheme and we will analyse the results obtained.

Juan-José Cuadrado-Gallego works in the Department of Computer Science at the Universidad de Alcalá, Madrid, Spain and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. He previously held positions at the Universidad de Valladolid and the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain, where he obtained his Doctorate in Computer Sciences Engineering in 2001. His research interests are centred in the area of Software Engineering and especially Software Measurement. He is the
president of the Spanish Function Points Users Group (SFPUG). <jjcg AT uah DOT es>

Luigi Buglione is an associate professor at the École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS) – Université du Québec, Canada and is currently working as a Software Quality Engineer in the Quality Dept. at Atos Origin (formerly SchlumbergerSema) in Rome, Italy. Previously, he worked as a Software Engineer at the European Software Institute (ESI) in Bilbao, Spain. Dr. Buglione is a regular speaker at international Conferences on Software Measurement and Quality and is the co-ordinator of the Software Measurement Committee (SMC) of the Italian Software Metrics Association (GUFPI-ISMA). He developed and was part of ESPRIT and of Basque Government projects on
metric programs, EFQM models, the Balanced IT Scorecard and QFD for software and was a reviewer of the SWEBOK project. He received a Ph.D in Management Information Systems from LUISS Guido Carli University (Rome, Italy) and a degree in Economics from the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza". <luigi.buglione AT computer DOT org>

UPENET (UPGRADE European NETwork) [PDF: 18 pages, 502 KB]

From Pro Dialog (PTI-PIPS, Poland)
Human-Computer Interface
Handy Hand – Power at Your Fingertips
Maksymilian Cierniewski, Jan Kniat, Pawel Marciniak, Marcin Zduniak, and Michal Zygmunt

This paper was first published, in English, by Pro Dialog (issue no. 21, 2006, pp. 47-69). Pro Dialog, a founding member of UPENET, is a biannual journal published jointly, in English or Polish, by the Polish CEPIS society PTI-PIPS (Polskie Towarzystwo Informatyczne – Polish Information Processing Society) and the Poznan University of Technology, Institute of Computing Science.

Abstract: The paper presents the Handy Hand System, designed by a team of students from Poznan University of Technology, Poland, for the IEEE CSIDC’2005. It consists of a Handy Hand device and a number of other small devices (called pins) that communicate with each other on a radio frequency (RF). This distributed system of pins forms a kind of abstraction layer over a variety of devices, providing a uniform way of controlling them. Pins of the first type, Executive Pins, manipulate the device according to user’s commands and inform the other Executive Pins about its current state, which enables them to react appropriately according to user-defined rules. The other type of pin, Indication Pin, waits for being spotted by an infra-red beam coming from the Handy Hand. The Administration Center allows registering other system components, performing system setup, granting permissions, defining rules for the Event-Driven Architecture, as well as providing external access to the system.

From Novática (ATI, Spain)
ICT Security
Anatomy of an Intrusion
Miguel Sánchez-López

This paper was first published, in Spanish, by Novática (issue no. 178, Nov.-Dec. 2005, pp. 69–73). Novática, a founding member of UPENET, is a bimonthly journal published, in Spanish, by the Spanish CEPIS society ATI (Asociación de Técnicos de Informática – Association of Computer Professionals). This paper was a finalist of the I Novática Award for the best article published in 2005.

Abstract: This article describes vividly what happened when the author detected his computer at a university network had been broken into. From detection to tracking the intruders down there was a long and winding path that included reporting the incident to the authorities and, later, the prosecution of those responsible.

Monograph: The Bologna Process and The Informatics Profession

Presentation
The Bologna Process and The Informatics Profession [PDF: 3 pages, 92 KB]
(includes a set of useful references about the matter)
Juan-José Cuadrado-Gallego and Luigi Buglione - Guest Editors

The construction of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is currently the most important challenge facing higher education in Europe. It has been more than eight years since Paris saw four member states of the European Union sign an initial document, commonly known as the Sorbonne Declaration, which stated the need to standardize higher education studies throughout the European Union. Since then there have been a great many events and initiatives related to the construction of the EHEA, the most important of which was the 1999 Bologna Declaration in which all EU member states declared their interest in the construction of a single higher education area and laid the foundations for its future development.

The standardization proposal put forward by the Bologna Declaration and ratified and perfected in subsequent agreements has not been limited to merely defining a standardization model for qualifications among signatory states but has gone much further than that. The proposal has brought about a real revolution in the way higher education is understood in Europe and has introduced radical changes in both organizational and pedagogical aspects. These changes will also affect future professional careers since both the training and the qualifications required to access those careers will undergo, or are already undergoing, major changes.

Computer Engineering studies, and therefore the professional careers of IT professionals, will not be immune to these future changes. This special edition of UPGRADE is
made up of a number of papers that jointly present the broadest possible overview of the effect that the new Bologna framework will have, or rather is already having, on computer studies and the IT profession.

The monograph comprises seven articles, all very different in terms of source and content, which aim to provide the broadest possible overview of the subject. We kick off with an opinion piece entitled "Professionalism in IT" in which Charles Hughes, president of the British Computer Society, provides us with the viewpoint of a professional association. The author takes as his starting point the ever growing importance of information systems for society in general and from there he puts forward a new vision of the IT profession. First he sets out the new requirements that an IT professional needs to meet, then he looks at the social and institutional recognition that such a professional should enjoy, before finally proposing the kind of academic training that should be delivered. He closes the article by putting forward a possible roadmap to implement this new vision of the IT profession.

The second article is another opinion piece entitled "Towards A Real Change (or The Modification of Computer Engineering Studies through The Eyes of A Student)" . In
this article Mikel Salazar-Peña, ex-president of RITSI (Spanish Association of Engineering and Technical Computer Engineering Students), provides the reader with a student’s eye view of the impact that the Bologna process may have on computer science studies, and to what extent it could be used to correct existing shortcomings in the IT profession.

The next four articles share a common thread which is the description of real developments aimed at the adjustment of higher education to the Bologna framework.

In the first of these articles, "Evolution of Computer Science Studies in Spain in The European Higher Education Area", Juan-José Cuadrado-Gallego, León González-Sotos, Daniel Rodríguez-García and Miguel-Ángel Sicilia-Urbán describe the Spanish experience of the adjustment of higher education in computer science to the new framework proposed by Bologna. The article begins by describing the current approach to computer science teaching leading to three qualifications – two technical and one higher – with different organizational set-ups depending on the university, before moving on to look at the new proposals that have been developed as part of the adjustment process. The authors start by describing undergraduate studies in Computer Engineering before moving on to examine postgraduate, master, and doctorate studies. The article finishes with an in-depth analysis of the ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credit system and proposes a statistical method for allocating credits to a specific subject, a method which has already been successfully tried out for a number of subjects taught by the Department of Computer Sciences of the Universidad de Alcalá.

In the second of the four articles, "Bologna Process: The Italian Experience", Luigi Buglione looks at the changes introduced in Italy after the first call for the harmonization of the architecture of the European Higher Education System. The author addresses four issues in the light of present day Italian legislation: the three-cycle structure, ECTS, the Diploma experience, and quality assurance. This article closes with the presentation of some results from the Bergen 2005 stocktaking of progress made by the European countries involved in the process.

The third article, "The Dutch Experience of Carrying Out The Bologna Process" written by Maya Daneva, looks at the Bologna Process in the context of the Netherlands and describes the experiences of a number of Dutch universities over the last five years. The author maintains that the Bologna Process has so far contributed little to European convergence of higher education systems, although it has prompted major reforms in national systems, as is the case in the Netherlands.

The last article of the foursome is the work of René Braungarten, Martin Kunz and Reiner R. Dumke and is entitled "Historical Evolution of Courses of Study in Computer Science: A German Experience Report". It describes the German experience of the adjustment of higher education in computer science to the European Higher Education Area. The article focuses on the example of the Federal Republic of Germany and, after a brief historical overview of higher education in Germany, looks at the development of computer science studies over the last few years on the back of relevant regulatory standards. Finally, the article presents an overview of the latest developments with regard to the Bologna Process, which are aligned with existing mandatory regulations for higher education in Germany.

The monograph closes with the article "ECTS Pilot Scheme for The Technical Engineering Degree in Data Processing and Computer Systems", by José-Luis Álvarez-Macías, Manuel Redondo-González, Javier Aroba-Páez, Beatriz Aranda-Louvier and Patricio Salmerón-Revuelta. This article takes a look at a pilot experience carried out at the Universidad de Huelva, the aim of which was to put a number of working methodologies in place with a view to bringing teaching more in line with the new European model for higher education. The article describes the model used, the implementation process chosen, and the results obtained.

Translation by Steve Turpin

Useful References on The "Bologna Process" and Higher European Education

The following references, along with those included in the articles this monograph consists of, will help our readers to dig deeper into this field.

Books

Libros blancos del Programa de Convergencia Europea, Aneca (Agencia Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad y Acreditación, Spanish National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation).

Criterios y Directrices para la Garantía de Calidad en el Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior, Aneca.

Journals

European Journal of Education, Blackwell Publishing, <http://www.e-education-europe.org/uk/rubriques/journal/eje/01.asp>.

Boletín de Educación Superior / Higher Education Newsletter, Conferencia de Rectores de las Universidades Españolas (Conference of Spanish University Rectors),
<http://www.crue.org/>.

UNESCO Chair of Higher Education Management, (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya), <http://www.upc.edu/cudu/>.

The International Journal of Learning, Common Ground Publisher, <http://ijl.cgpublisher.com>.

European Journal on Engineering Education, Taylor and Francis Ltd, <http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/teee>.

Web Sites

Bologna Secretariat website, <http://www.dfes.gov.uk/bologna/>.

UK Bologna Process, <http://www.erasmus.ac.uk/Bologna.html>.

Bologna-Bergen Website (all documentation) <http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no/>.

Nordic Bologna Seminar - September 2006, <http://www.bolognaoslo.com/>.

European University Association - Bologna Process, <http://www.eua.be/eua/en/policy_bologna.jspx>.

UK Higher Education Europe Unit’s, <http://www.europeunit.ac.uk/bologna_process/index.cfm>.

ENQA (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education), <http://www.enqa.eu/>.

The Bologna Process (in Italian), <http://www.bolognaprocess.it>.

TUNING Project, <http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/educ/tuning/tuning_en.html>.

TUNING Project, University of Deusto, Bilbao (Spain),<http://tuning.unideusto.org/tuningeu/>.

CLIOH (Creating Links and Innovative Overviews to Enhance Historical Perspective in European Culture), <www.clioh.net>.

CHEPS (Center for Higher Education Policy Studies), <http://www.utwente.nl/cheps/>.

EURYDICE (Information Network on Education in Europe), <http://www.eurydice.org>.

ESIB (National Unions of Students in Europe), <http://www.esib.org>.

UNESCO-CEPES (European Centre for Higher Education), <http://www.cepes.ro>.

EAIE (European Association for International Education), <http://www.eaie.org>.

EUROCADRES (Council of European Professional and Managerial Staff), <http://www.eurocadres.org/en>.

European Legislation on Higher Education, <http://www.cepes.ro/hed/policy/legislation/he_laws.htm>.

EQO (European Quality Observatory), <http://www.eqo.info>.

Spanish web sites

Ministry of Education and Science - ESPACIO EUROPEO DE EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR (EEES) <http://www.mec.es/universidades/eees/index.html>.

Universia - Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior <http://eees.universia.es/>.

Last updated on November 7th, 2006

by the Editorial Team of Upgrade