Planning for Software Engineering Studies at ETF

1
Planning for Software Engineering Studies at ETF
Sarajevo

• Novica Nosovic (ETF-Sarajevo)
• novica.nosovic_at_etf.unsa.ba

2
Outline

• Motivation SE studies at ETF Belgrade with
  favorable outcomes (educational and financial)
• Students protests earlier this year in Zagreb
• Educational services and Bologna process
• Yet another curricula at ETF-Sarajevo in SE...
• ... and why it was born crippled
• Some conclusions

3
Stop the lessons in order to learn something!
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Tranzition in BH (and former Yugoslavia)

• State financed studies in recent years are
  expensive and stupid!

5
Students want

• Studies - free of charge, from the first semester
  till PhD degree
• (the truth is that the state does not have enough
  to provide free education)

6
Dean of the Faculty of Law in Zagreb warned

• University is dangerous and needs to be
  eliminated as energetic enemy...
• ...Studying is not a way of social and political
  control! It should be clear to students,
  universities and the state.

7
Introduction of Americanized System of
Commercial/self-financed Universities...

• ...leads to absurd situations in which British
  lords take their children out of Oxford and
  Cambridge so they would not study with sons of
  Russian mafia bosses...
• ...who have no problem with money...

8
Knowledge Societies and Absurd of Bologna
declaration...

• ...turned everything into a bitter joke
• koliko para, toliko muzike
• ...and BH is small and poor state/society!
• (108th on the World Bank list...
• 0.01 of the world IT market...)

9
Students do Not Want that Story!

• Knowledge they acquire is in obvious
  disproportion with money they pay for it!
• Example graduate studies fees are too high
  (!!!), and lessons often below undergraduate
  level!
• Professors teach at secondary school level,
  because PhD degrees, no matter the proficiency
  are acquired by those who can afford to pay!

10
High Education for Money???

• HE is free of charge in 14 EU countries, from
  Greece, Sweden to Check Republic and Slovenia!
• France has participation, but 50 of ours, with
  (rather) higher standards.
• Swiss scholarship for PhD studies is 1300SFR
  per year!!!
• Slovenia studies are free of charge the state
  pays 60 of the expenses for graduate studies!!!

11
Where is Common Sense?

• When somebody with simple sound logic draws a
  line what he (or she) paid for, and what got in
  return...
• ...can see that something is wrong there!

12
What is the Purpose of Reform!?

• Reform that serves only for itself is EVEL and
  leads to endless reform reformation!
• Austrians now plan to reform Bologna reform
  because it does not perform as planned!!!
• (Clever people new that beforehand, but, of
  course, it does not help now)

13
The Misery of EHEA Has Its Name Bologna

• Niche said
• Education is extremely requiring and, above all,
  individual effort that can not be translated into
  some general, planned and controlled program.
• Real knowledge societies should be those of easy
  living and freedom, and not those of
  practicalities, pressures and enforcements.

14
Theory of Non-education

• Bologna ideology is cold-bloodied liquidation
  of university basic reasons of existence.
• IKEA-education

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Paradox of Bolognization of EHEA

• It becomes obvious that the differences between
  universities, countries, curricula, research and
  teaching quality are growing, not diminishing!
• Students mobility is decreasing - Bologna
  forces them to study as quickly as possible and
  leave universities.

16
Economization of Knowledge!

• Treating knowledge as a product or raw material
  is ultimate utilitarianism with unforeseeable
  social, political, philosophical consequences.

17
Entropy

• Time is wasted lately on meetings, minutes,
  reports, creation of new data and regulations
  the results became useless due to a new reform.
• Primary role of universities is not to be
  permanently measured, evaluated and reformed!

18
Quantifying Science

• Supporting only those sciences that create
  directly economically measurable outcomes, would
  be the end of real science!
• Freedom must be the basic prerequisite of every
  science, and usability should be of secondary
  importance.

19
Hopes and Believes

• There is a hope that University and education are
  European ideas, that will on the long run survive
  and prevail in the melting pot of knowledge
  society.
• After the Catholic church, universities are the
  oldest European institutions that already
  survived animosities of rulers and different
  ideologies, and will survive attempts to be
  supervised by economy.

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SE Studies at ETF - Sarajevo

• Idea has been around for a number of years
• Plans ruined by Bologna and current (not only)
  financial crisis
• Mostly individual effort (due to conceptual
  consistency)

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How Computing Might Appear to Prospective
Students (IEEE/ACM CC2005)
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CS vs SE
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Chronology of SE Study Plan

• Initial paperwork 5 years ago
• HOD approval of the idea January 2009
• Updated business model and curricula/syllabus
  construction March 2009
• Team-work failed, communication with Dean and
  Ministry proved worthless
• ...
• Planned launch in September 2009 - postponed

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Conclusions

• Bologna was dead on arrival - started by high
  EU policy makers, no resources devoted to the
  transition, turned into dirty politics at the
  Ministry, University and (mostly) the Faculty
  level.
• Students and learning process improvements were
  clearly out of the scope.
• Bologna Crisis No place for SE studies at
  ETF Sarajevo (for some time)