Will Universities become extinct?

In the presentation for 21st ICDE World Conference by Terry Hilsberg named “Will Universities become extinct in the Networked World?” among other themes the low end disruption by internet upon higher education industry is discussed. One of the most interesting conclusions (at least to me because of having the same thoughts before) is:
“Value will be moved to assessment and support from content. Pay for examinations and academic support not content”.

Ad-hoc Education in PC Week/RE

PCWeek/RE опубликовал статью про Ad-hoc Education. Огромное спасибо всем, кто соучавствовал на всех предыдущих этапах перед этой публикацией.

Global University System

Thanks to Roman Schastlivtsev I searched for any similar ideas to ad-hoc education in scientific domain. I mean I looked through scientific publications. The stuff that I've found on the surface: Global University System.

From one of the available abstracts on this system:

The Global University System (GUS) is a worldwide initiative to create telecommunications infrastructure for access to educational resources across national and cultural boundaries for global peace. GUS aims to create a worldwide consortium of universities to provide the underdeveloped world with access to 21st Century education via Internet technologies.

The GUS works in the major regions of the globe with partnerships of higher education and healthcare institutions. Learners in these regions will be able to take their courses from member institutions around the world to receive a GUS degree. These learners and their professors from partner institutions will also form a global forum for exchange of ideas and information and for conducting collaborative research and development with emerging global GRID computer network technology. The aim is to achieve "education and healthcare for all," anywhere, anytime and at any pace.

A lot of ideas there seems to be great. But unfortuntely I have not found any progress on this activities (maybe I tryed in too glance way).

South Africa Example

In the interview with Taddy Blecher by Peter Day on BBC World Service I've heard about a very radical and simple idea (and the implementation) of a University that runs on no money.
A news article - "University for South Africa's poor" on this topic is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4092130.stm

The article begins as follows:

Five years ago, from his office in Johannesburg in South Africa, without any university buildings, courses or staff, he began faxing out a letter of invitation to 350 schools.

He asked the brightest and poorest students to apply for a new university - and promised them the "best business education in Africa".

This was going to be South Africa's first free university, created to serve talented youngsters from the poor black communities who could never afford to send their children to the established universities.

The letter struck a chord - and because the only address on the letter was the place where Dr Blecher was working - would-be students began gathering outside the plush consultancy offices.

Draft Concept: English Edition V2.5

Self-organizing Education Environment (Active Ad-hoc Education)

Motivation

CIS (former Soviet Union) Region
The speed of changes in IT & telecoms makes it very difficult to define education standards and programs in non-fundamental disciplines. The State (especially in countries like Russia) has no ability to set directions in this area. Meanwhile the industry shows strong growth every year. Accordingly the need of qualified employees grows too. The current situation is that the number of advanced students (who do not rely on the University program and practice self-education) cannot satisfy companies’ needs anymore. What’s more, there is no culture among students to investigate what knowledge and skills will be expected (e.g. by reading job postings). Moreover, demographic issues are going to start affecting the labor market in the nearest years. So to allow further development and save (secure) competitiveness of the region (cost of workforce and high professional level) the business should play an appreciable role in educational process, which could be done in some aspects without spending many resources on it (that is now possible as a result of new technologies).

Worldwide
It seems that the lack of IT professionals will remain for years in all parts of the world (including EU and USA). At least if we do approximation basing on the previous times. There are also countries where the situation is similar to Russia.

System concept
An online environment can be established which will allow to create and boost positive processes. Business publishes what knowledge and experience it expects from graduates (in the near perspective of 1-3 years and middle-term of 4-6 years). Sometimes it is not so easy even for the technology leading companies to precisely predict areas that will emerge, but they've got strategy planning teams and there are market research agencies. They can put their vision. It could be more valuable for students when not the government institutes, but the top companies and the brightest local ones say what to learn and what to do. Because companies give jobs and they (at least in theory) know what they need. Usually companies (but not government) are considered as employers.

The environment should contain:

1. Scope of areas to learn with appropriate resources to study (recommended books and online materials – only links, not content)
2. Common actual tasks (Linux installation, apache configuration, punching UTP cable, make a floor plan in AutoCAD…). Such a list could help with orientation – which areas are interesting to dig out and which are not. Practice is very essential. It is boring to study without playing with real things.
3. Open, non-critical for the current business tasks which companies post on the system (e.g. small tools development, beta-testing, process optimization, playing with frontier technologies, light research, market research even in non-tech areas). It is all interesting to play in a sandbox but it cannot always drive mad with enthusiasm. Contact with the real world is important. Curiosity should be maintained by real world tasks
4. Enthusiasts search for enthusiasts. Posts of ideas to implement. (E.g. a professor searches for student(s) to implement his/her idea e.g. a test model creation or developing some software). This feature could attract people who have the same needs and interests and some free time and experience.
5. Enthusiasts search for a serious task. A team with relatively comprehensive skills (4-5 year at the University) looks for an interesting project (idea) to implement within area they already got some experience.
6. Some business incubator function (seeding startups). Projects started in the environment could evolve into new original businesses.
7. For relatively complicated tasks the system’s engine should support some project management functionality (that supports online collaboration, project tracking, documents management; allows integration (at least links) with other new systems like sourceforge.org, blogs, wikis etc). It is important that the environment should establish proper project management culture.
8. Rating system - E-Bay alike (task openers and task doers rank each other). Companies with good history will attract more attention, as well as a student with few successfully done projects will be the top candidate for many employers. Ratings of areas of knowledge, skills and standard tasks also could be started.

Content of features #1 and #2 is a consolidated result of many participants. From the other hand could be useful an ability for a particular team in a particular department of a particular company to post its own list of desirable knowledge and skills that are required. Such customized lists can be interesting for the students who target particular companies and particular areas.

The main goal of the environment is to promote this active ad-hoc approach to education and to form the environment that boosts use of it. The environment should attract and involve people by showing interesting examples.

The proposed system possesses a property of self-organization, the system that inherently has an ability to catch new directions and trends. It does not matter what the area it is: IT, power generation or economics. The more new knowledge and experience emerge, the more projects that required them are posted on the system and more buzz for these areas appear. As a result, more people will face emerging areas. And this is what we need in fact. There is no task to swap existing institutes (the Universities, high schools etc.). The system concept is an attempt to catalyze a parallel and independent process, the process that could in time adapt to any changes that appear at high speed. Futurists predict that 25% of the jobs available by the year 2025 will be in positions unknown today.

The environment of that kind has more chances than ever before since the very special knowledge, devices and software look as features of the past century and technologies which are common and posses open nature here come to stay. More and more study materials, documentation and SW are available for free via Internet and the only hardware needed in the most cases is a PC (better 2 or 3 networked) and its standard off-the-shelf periphery. The second reason is that the Internet (forums, wikies, blogs) allows acting in ‘one to many’ mode. There is no need to waste time explaining a task for each who is interested. An explanation that is done once is in use for everyone. And of course online collaboration will play a great role.

An important thing is openness. In this context - anyhow the way the process goes it should be visible – intermediate results and current project state must be reflected (presented) in the system. At least the minimum that must be shown are a task definition - 'request for result' and results - what was done, how it was. The best case is when all interim, support and final documents, negotiations, time tables etc (i.e. the whole history of a project - are available for public access (directly on server or links to external places). Possible gradations of openness: totally open, …, closed research (only area of task and opinions on results).

Involved parties

• Companies (employers)
• Students (employees), enthusiasts
• Recruitment companies (they get a resource to trace bright candidates on early stages, meanwhile such companies could coordinate activities within some components of the system)
• Publishing houses (just to sell more books and periodicals, from their part some information support could come)
• Market research agencies, consulting companies (can play roles of mediators and coordinators)
• Venture funds

Benefits for employers

• Recruited people already shaped (at least they’ve got an idea) to current activities at company
• Gain overall students’ competence level
• Tasks which were done successfully
• Reaching talent people from regions
• Company’s promotion (making positive image)

Benefits for students

• Gain motivation and get broader view in current technologies and labor market requirements
• Opportunity to understand what is interesting to work with and what is not in fact before any full-time contracts (before going into industry)
• Actual knowledge and experience
• Opportunity to get grants, part-time contracts via the system
• Opportunity to get over geografical borders in some cases

Implementation
Web-based platform, maybe with offline clients. Not to create implementations of existing tech engines, to integrate them or just use in the current context (maybe use external blogs, wikies, CVS (sourceforge.org), instant messaging systems etc.). Cashing information from external resources is possible. Among the known existing open (GPL) engines NetProjectJournal looks the most suitable (see here: http://www.npj.ru/node/english_description). Unfortunately, it’s still under development although it’s already usable. The other strategy is to adopt loosely coupled architecture using free services provided by other systems.

The whole engine of the system should allow activities related not only to technical stuff but maybe economical, social, culture, art. The environment should be allowed by its born to evolve into something like a project fabric (forum, market, mall…).

Inspirations
Open source (www.sourceforge.org , www.osdl.org, code.google.com/summerofcode.htm ),

Open hardware (www.opencores.org, www.openhardware.ru, www.openhardware.de, http://opencollector.org/Whyfree/),

shared R&D idea (an article in Financial Times http://www.rand.org/commentary/082504FT.html ),
www.wikipedia.org, www.wikibooks.org, www.iec.org, http://creativecommons.org/education/,
www.intuit.ru, www.e-graduate.ru, www.respublikaidei.ru, www.e-generator.ru, www.firststeps.ru.

Examples of tasks to post

• Write a tool to analyze (compare etc) logs
• Deploy Jabber infrastructure (for 50 workplaces)
• Develop a small DB
• Build cluster on old computers
• Deploy an open source ERP (in University)
• Make IT audit - define scope of work. Team that successfully finished a project can define scope of work for another project.
• More broad initiative: digital home open architecture (protocols, components, SW & HW implementation, accent on standard components, old HW reuse)

Other issues (additional comments)
Companies with well established processes could be more interested in the first two components of the environment, while for chaotic and stingy companies the main interest could be in the remaining parts.

To establish and maintain the core system functionality a forum (consortium) of international and local companies could be formed. It is especially important for local companies to gain average level of graduates, since global players have more abilities to attract the most interesting people.

The very important thing is strong and aptly targeted marketing of the environment.

The system should not be considered as a profitable business, it is rather a strategic social/technological project to develop the ground for further ICT industry growth. Nevertheless if the system works well, points of profit could appear.

The system must not be targeted only at high-school and university students. It could also be a resource for retraining.

Companies make students and techies competitions. All that is known after a competition is often only names of winners. Conditions, results and maybe some intermediate stuff could be placed at the server. In this case distributed teams can be involved.

I classify students into 3 groups (it’s a very rough and subjective division based situation in Russia). The question is how it correlates with the reality.

1. those who are interested in nothing (regarding to education)
2. those, who are interested. And they discover and dig out and study by themselves (in borders of standard educational programs and often far beyond the borders – in emerging areas). They not just attend lections and practice, they do a lot more.
3. Others (about 30% - 60%) could potentially be interested. But it’s hard to begin because it is not, of course, a trivial challenge (and there is no motivation often) – to take control on the education process.

And the idea is to help group #2 - give them a more focused roadmap and a playground for their activity. And to stimulate an incentive for group #3 - to show them that they could do things like those who are in the second group.

The second biggest problem for Russian

CNews сообщает:

Ассоциация "Руссофт" провела исследование "Рейтинг мер государственной поддержки экспорта продуктов и услуг в сфере ИТ". Данные о том, какая господдержка наиболее востребована отраслью разработки и экспорта ПО, были получены в результате опроса руководителей 33-х российских компаний-экспортеров. При этом меры господдержки были проранжированы в порядке значимости, а также была оценена целесообразность их применения.
...
Второе место [после снижения налогов] рейтинге значимости заняла поддержка подготовки кадров. Отсутствие партнерства между ИТ-бизнесом и системой образования не позволяет системе высшего образования воспроизводить недостающий ресурс. Кроме того, у ИТ-компаний существует нехватка и в профессиональном менеджменте. Недостаточная подготовка в области иностранных языков является еще одним барьером на пути развития экспорта индустрии.

Loosely coupled engine

As an option (I mean one of the possible implementation scenario) the Ad-hoc Education Environment engine may be just a pool (or a network, if you wish) of loosely coupled free services provided by other systems.
Is there a need for the own service that tights all other together or it's already non-mandatory?

As an example sketch (this post itself could be posted on npj.ru, somefreeWiki or rumored Google Base)
project: graphics for the Ad-hoc Education Environment

what is requested: any pictures that can help with promoting ahe and its visual design (logo, posters, banners, and even design concept and color schemes, pictures for navigation buttons etc.)

how to contribute: put your jpeg files to e.g. flickr as following user …

comments by reviewers could be posted at blog ahegraph.someblogsystem.com at this blog will also appear final results (what was selected for use)

to participate please register (if not registered yet) at someregister.com or otherregister.com

Wikiversity and wikicities.com

There are ideas that spur in the same time in different places. The concept I’ve named Ad-hoc education has some similar core ideas with the concept of Wikiversity. The brief info is presented at Wikipedia. At this time there is a temporary site where Wikiversity is placed.

Thanks to Danila Medvedev and consequently http://www.wikicities.com/ (especially to MetaCollab project by Mark Elliott) for guiding me to this project.

Google University? by Scott Sorley

A fact noticed by Scott Sorley that Google already provides great infrastructure for Universities and Education Institutions.

GMail - a 1GB email storage system
Google Groups - discussion forums
Google Scholar - searching scholarly publications
Google Search - Internet Searching
Google Answers - answer any question you want
Blogger - internet publishing solution
Google News - up to date news headlines

So they can outsource and "focus on their core business - education, directed learning, specialise knowledge, research or whatever it is".

See here:
http://scott.sorley.com/articles/20050418.html

Infastructure documents

Ericsson makes students contests (already for a few years in Russia). So some legal and advertising documents to support the contest were made. And it could be a good thing if these docs were put in public domain (can 'some rights reserved' term be applied here?) as templates. Other companies can reuse this bundle of documents customizing it to particular conditions, corporate rules etc. The positive effect is that there is no need in doing basic work (developing all from the scratch). Is it another application of patterns idea initially approached by Alexander in architecture areas and then taken by software architects? 'Contest documents' pattern?

There are few Free Content Licenses (e.g. GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons License). So why not to apply some for the mentioned docs?

Ad-hoc education platform is web 2.0?

I've read Tim O'Reilly’s article “What Is Web 2.0. Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software”
It is a Must-read for a lot of people who are involved in internet related areas I think.
In fact it's far more about business then technology. And it's about communications model.

The interesting thing: concept of a platform for ad-hoc education (the environment, as I see it) satisfies at least 6 out of 8 core competences of Web 2.0 companies described in the article, but these refer to commercial, not to non-profit stuff. What could it mean?

Exception: Cognitive Technologies

Интервью с Владимиром Арлазаровым, президентом Cognitive Technologies (PC Week/RE #30, 2005) – исключение из общего хора о недостаточной подготовке студентов и.т.п. Есть даже такая фраза: «Работа с молодежью — это одна из составляющих нашей деятельности, и у нас нет никаких проблем с притоком кадров».

Цитирую:

PC Week: Жалобы на вузы в деле обучения разработчиков постоянно звучат со стороны ИТ-компаний. Как вы оцениваете уровень подготовки сегодняшних выпускников вузов по ИТ-специальностям?
В. А.: По-моему, она улучшается. Не буду сравнивать нынешних студентов с их сверстниками двадцать лет назад, а вот за последнее десятилетие повышение качества образования для меня вполне очевидно. Падает другое — уважительное отношение к науке со стороны государства, а как следствие — и со стороны общества. Да, порой я слышу от студентов, обучающихся по специальности “математическая экономика”, недоуменный вопрос: “А зачем мне нужно изучать вопросы построения алгоритмов?”. Но при этом я понимаю, что вопрос этот отражает не пробелы в его образовании, а господствующую в нашем обществе точку зрения. У нас ежегодно делают дипломные проекты четверо-пятеро человек, а всего студентов трудится в той или иной степени около двух десятков. Обычно они приходят к нам на третьем курсе, начинают работать с нескольких часов в неделю и постепенно втягиваются все больше. Многие наши сотрудники параллельно преподают в различных вузах, что помимо прочего также помогает нам отбирать подходящих ребят. Работа с молодежью — это одна из составляющих нашей деятельности, и у нас нет никаких проблем с притоком кадров.

Европу ждет дефицит ИТ-специалистов

цитирую CNews:

В Европе к 2008 году будет наблюдаться нехватка 500 тысяч специалистов в области IP-телефонии, мобильной связи и ИТ-безопасности. Таковы результаты опроса европейских ИТ-директоров, проведенного исследователями рынка из IDC по заказу Cisco. В частности, в Великобритании будет порядка 40 тысяч вакантных мест.

А вот про Новые Требования (оттуда же):

Управляющий корпоративный директор британского отделения Cisco UK Ник Ватсон (Nick Watson): "Существует потребность в таком типе людей, которые смогут преобразовать технологию для ее применения в бизнесе. У нас есть люди с фантастическими техническими умениями и лидеры в бизнесе, но нам нужна новая „порода“, которая сможет перевести все, что технически возможно, на реальное применение в бизнесе".

Vice-president of education at Sun Microsystems

I wonder what positions will appear at Sun in the next 5 years! After chief open source officier there could be head of imagination department and chief old businesses destroyer...

Coming back to the education theme: the head article of FT's special report: "Online Education" (they see the second wave of e-learning) says:

In an article in THE Journal, a magazine that covers the application of technology in education,
Kim Jones, vice-president of education at Sun Microsystems, suggests that the "digital campus" is
now truly on its way. "Thanks to some innovative technology trends, the educational landscape is
transforming," she explains. The key is not so much the technologies themselves, as the way in
which they are being drawn together into a unified network, thus creating "a seamless, secure,
collaborative environment for learning, achievement and administration that is available to
everyone".
Not everyone is convinced, however. In an article in the Electronic Journal of E-Learning from late
2004, a team led by Djamshid Tavangarian and Markus Leypold of the University of Rostock in Germany
reported on a survey of online learning programmes at various levels, and were strongly critical of
what they found. "Current e-learning systems on the market are limited to technical gadgets and
organisational aspects of teaching," they commented. "As a result, the learner has become
de-individualised and demoted to a non-critical homogeneous user." They criticised online learning
programmes for being insufficiently flexible, particularly when it comes to allowing users to
configure the programmes and add their own content, and berated designers for being too wrapped up
in technology and failing to provide adequate support for learners. "Our demand to designers of
e-learning systems can only be to drop their preoccupation with technical gimmicks and instead try
to achieve a true understanding of the learning process," they concluded.

it-education.ru conference

Оказывается есть Открытая всероссийская конференция "Преподавание Информационных Технологий в России".
http://www.it-education.ru/
Проходит с 2003 года. Порадовал список спонсоров, как впрочем и их непосредственное участие (доклады) в конференции. От ИТ-образования список участников не менее представительный. Как я понимаю, организовывает меропрятие Форт-Росс.

А еще, теперь есть Международная научно-практическая конференция «Современные информационные технологии и ИТ-образование» (прошла первый раз. Москва, МГУ им. М.В. Ломоносова, факультет ВМК, 19-22 сентября 2005 г.). Список спонсоров снова порадовал. Список организаторов, как и участников неимоверно представительный.

General System, Ad-hoc Educ. is a part

It's obvious to me now, that ad-hoc education is just a project (but one of the most serious) in a more general system of open collaborative activities. And ad-hoc education could be a starting project to run the general system.Another elaboration: the open projects register (where such projects, sourceforge.org alike, are listed) must be separated and independent from the engine that supports collaboration. The reason is that someone wants to list a project and has more appropriate tools to support it. Or a group tries to do something using the engine and does not mind making it public (at least till a moment).

FT on Openess and Collaboration

Financial Times issued (September 20 2005) its first special report in a new Digital Business series. Very enthusiastic content! (for some time it will be in free access). There are wonderful articles with examples I was waiting for - of what kind of activity can host the system I'm trying to describe.

Some quotations:

1. “How open source gave power to the people” By Richard Waters:

The sedentary art of software development and the extreme sports of kitesurfing, sailplaning and canyoning would appear to have little in common.
However, both are examples of a new force that could eventually affect a far broader range of companies and industries: the power of users to shape how products are developed.
In the internet age, it seems, the next big idea to change your industry may come from an unexpected direction.
As related by Eric von Hippell (Democratizing Innovation. Eric von Hippell, The MIT Press), professor of management and innovation at the Sloan School of Management at MIT, followers of extreme sports have become expert at adapting and refining the equipment they use. Sometimes, the way these informal communities work can look very similar to the way open source software developers create their elaborate products.

Kitesurfers, for instance – who stand on surf boards holding kites which whisk them over breaking waves, producing acrobatic leaps and twists – have taken to using sophisticated computer modelling software to design the most efficient kites. They then share their ideas over the internet, refining their concepts before sending them to a manufacturer.
Sophisticated tools that let individuals take part in the process of creation, the internet as a means to draw together communities of like-minded people, a willingness to share ideas for the common good – these are the basic ingredients of a new approach to innovation.

End of quotation 1.

2. “The march of the web-enabled amateurs” by Lawrence Lessig:

“There are tens of thousands of projects built through the collaboration of millions around the world – blogs, free software, newsgroups helping people do everything from knitting to using Microsoft products – and the phenomenon is just starting. Open collaboration was once just a dream. The net has made it a reality”.

On wikis:
“Grand collaborative projects carried out by volunteers have been made possible by ‘wikis’...
In 2001, a former Chicago futures trader, Jimmy Wales, started a similar “open source” project. In a request posted on the world wide web, Mr Wales asked for volunteers to help write a web-based encyclopedia.
Using “wiki” software, in which anyone can add to, or change, what anyone else had written, people from across the world started “writing” what would be called “Wikipedia.”
Thousands soon joined the project. Four years later, there are more than 2.3m articles within Wikipedia, about one-third of which are in English and the rest in more than 100 other languages”.

Not on wikis
“Nasa has recruited “clickworkers” to map craters on Mars, and soon, asteroids, after finding the work of volunteers was better – and much cheaper – than the work of paid professionals”.

AIESEC seminar

Yesterday I was at a seminar organized by Petersburg’s AIESEC. The things were set in the following manner. Real people from real business (and often top management) meet students and tell really important things. Various cases are proposed for students to solve. IMHO the main message of the event: “Don't relay on University – do that is interesting and keep eyes open to what is going on around”.

Open Project Documentation

В статье профессора Шалыто «Ещё раз об открытой проектной документации» в PCWeek/RE #11, 2005. Нашел строчку: «упор в нем [движении за открытую проектную документацию] делается не на документацию программ, а на документацию проектов их создания», по которой получается, что идея открытой проектной документации (Foundation for Open Project Documentation) вполне вписывается в общий ход мыслей об ad-hoc education. И в контексте ad-hoc education идея, по моему мнению, не имеет столь спорного характера (см. дискуссию на zdnet.ru), как при применении ко всей софтверной индустрии в целом.

E-Bay Analogy

E-Bay is an example of how a single web platform (in cooperation with post services and e-money) can systematize and bring to a completely new level an activity that has been exist ages before. I mean selling & buying used things (and some other stuff - what is really important). So there is a chance a unified education-focused web-based system can do something that is the same to E-Bay effect.

By the way (a bit off-topic) E-Bay is a wonderful example of how consumerist society spurs re-use culture.

And Marketing...

An article in The St. Petersburg Times by Sveta Skibinsky (September 13, 2005) confirms (IMHO) my suggestions that marketing sphere also could benefit using ad-hoc education system.

Here are some (or more precisely a lot of) excerpts from the mentioned ‘Practical Marketing About to Start with “You!” ‘:

The gap between theory and working reality has serious repercussions, not least in marketing — a field in which up to date knowledge of social trends and concepts is vital to achieving success…

“After graduation, marketing majors have very little understanding of what the actual profession entails, even if they have had internships in the field and done various case studies in college,” said Natalia Lantzevich, an education programs specialist at Competenz consultancy…

“The poor student has to have some sort of ‘playing field’ to go from test-books to practice. Problem based learning systems are the answer to that,” [Polina Petrushina, marketing and development director at Trust Management, a strategy consulting company] said…

Problem based learning (PBL) programs are those that allow students to participate in active educational methods, such as projects, case-solving and business games, said Competenz’s Lantzevich…

However, experts say using case studies and project methods during the course of education is not enough to prepare students for the real world. “The shortcomings of such practices within a university course are that there is little communication between the actual company and the students, the results of the project give no feasible benefits to the companies and there is no feedback from practicing professionals,” said Philip Guzenyuk, who is one of the founders of a marketing professionals association Brand People…

To work out a way to organizing a program that would include that student-company interaction, in June this year Brand People conducted a business game among marketing professionals, which focused on developing a PBL program fit for the city.
“About 25 marketing and human resources experts from leading St. Petersburg and Moscow companies participated in the game, and the result was a proposal to create a project-based business-school called “You!” purely for marketing students,” Guzenyuk said.
In the program, students from the city’s top universities will conduct market research, develop advertising campaigns, and brainstorm new business development ideas for program’s partner-companies. The process is to be supervised by representatives of those companies, business-coaches and university professors, who would grade the input of each student and help the students find suitable employment in the future, Guzenyuk said.

PCWeek/RE: 3 new software development centers crash labor market in Petersburg

Блог начинает приобретать черты некоего собрания констатаций о том, как в ИТ-индустрии уже сейчас очень не хватает людей, так что сей пост постараюсь сделать если не последним, то одним из последних в этом жанре.
Цитирую заметки о ROSS-2005 (Russian Outsourcing Software Summit) Эдуарда Пройдакова в PСWeek/Re #23, 2005:
“… Тех немногих, кого выпускают вузы, нужно доучивать. Уже сейчас надвигается следующая беда — через пять лет не будет и преподавателей… Примеры отдельных локальных решений этой проблемы не меняют общую картину. (Компания МЕRА, например, создала свой учебный центр — Нижегородский институт информационных технологий, работающий с вузами региона.) О чём говорить, когда появление в Санкт-Петербурге трёх центров разработки, открытых западными компаниями и занявших всего 800 человек, сломало рынок программистов в пятимиллионном городе! О какой конкуренции с Индией, имеющей уже 450 технопарков, или с Китаем можно сейчас вести речь? ”

CNews: IT in Russia, lack of brain resources

CNews отметился статьей о нехватке ИТ-кадров в своем бумажном издании под заголовком «ИТ в России: неурожай умов» (на сайте можно посмотреть краткую версию).

Цитирую вводную к статье:
"Для обеспечения инновационного прорыва в сфере разработки и аутсорсинга ПО в России в ближайшее время намечено строительство четырех ИТ-технопарков с государственным участием. Но уже сегодня компании испытывают кадровый голод, а завтра им не хватит программистов не только для прорыва, но и для поддержания роста на уровне последних лет."

Sun Microsystems & Open Source. Next phase

I'm not going to post all open source related news. But this one I've found very important in relation with any open nature activity in the big business.
August 18, 2005 ZDNet News says:
"Sun Microsystems on Wednesday night launched an office dedicated to open-source matters, signaling a new elevation of the collaborative programming philosophy within the server and software company. Simon Phipps, already Sun's open-source officer, will lead the Open Source Office and report to Hal Stern, software chief technology officer. In an interview Thursday, Phipps said the move formalizes a role he's had in coordinating Sun's open-source efforts and communicating with outsiders regarding open-source software." See more: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5838721.html

Draft Concept: English Edition V2e

Self-organizing education system (Active ad-hoc education)

Motivation

CIS Region
The speed of changes in IT & telecoms makes it very difficult to define education standards and programs in non-fundamental disciplines. The State (especially in countries like Russia) has no ability to set directions in this area. Meanwhile the industry shows strong growth every year. Accordingly the need of qualified employees grows too. The current situation is that the number of advanced students (who do not rely on the University program and practise self-education) cannot satisfy companies’ needs anymore. What’s more, there is no culture among students to investigate what knowledge and skills will be expected (e.g. by reading job postings). Moreover, demographic issues are going to start affecting the labor market in the nearest years. So to allow further development and save (secure) competitiveness of the region (cost of workforce and high professional level) the business should play an appreciable role in educational process, which could be done in some aspects without spending many resources on it (that is now possible as a result of new technologies).

Worldwide
It seems that the lack of IT professionals will remain for years in all parts of the world. At least if we do approximation basing on the previous times. There are countries where the situation is similar to Russia.

System concept
An online system can be established which will allow to create and booste positive processes. Business publishes what knowledge and experience it expects from graduates (in the near perspective of 1-3 years and middle-term of 4-6 years). Sometimes it is not so easy even for the technology leading companies to precisely predict areas that will emerge, but they've got strategy planning teams and there are market research agencies. They can put their vision. It could be more valuable for students when not the government institutes, but the top companies and the brightest local ones say what to learn and what to do. Because companies give jobs and they (at least in theory) know what they need. Usually companies (but not government) are considered as employers.

The system should contain:

1. Scope of areas to learn with appropriate resources to study (recommended books and online materials – only links, not content)
2. Common actual tasks (Linux installation, apache configuration, punching UTP cable, make a floor plan in AutoCAD…). Such a list could help with orientation – which areas are interesting to dig out and which are not. Practice is very essential. It is boring to study without playing with real things.
3. Open, non-critical for the current business tasks which companies post on the system (e.g. small tools development, beta-testing, process optimization, playing with frontier technologies, light research, market research even in non-tech areas). It is all interesting to play in a sandbox but it cannot always drive mad with enthusiasm. Contact with the real world is important. Curiosity should be maintained by real world tasks
4. Enthusiasts search for enthusiasts. Posts of ideas to implement. (E.g. a professor search for student(s) to implement his/her idea e.g. a test model creation or developing some software). This feature could attract people who have the same needs and interests and some free time and experience.
5. Enthusiasts search for a serious task. A team with relatively comprehensive skills (4-5 year at the University) looks for an interesting project (idea) to implement within area they already got some experience.
6. Some business incubator function (seeding startups). Projects started in the system could evolve into new original businesses.
7. For relatively complicated tasks the system’s engine should support some project management functionality (that supports online collaboration, project tracking, documents management; allows integration (at least links) with other new systems like sourceforge, blogs etc). It is important that the system should establish proper project management culture.
8. Rating system - E-bay alike (task openers and task doers rank each other). Companies with good history will attract more attention, as well as a student with few successfully done projects will be the top candidate for many employers. Ratings of areas of knowledge, skills and standard tasks also could be started.

Content of features #1 and #2 is a consolidated results of many participants. From the other hand could be useful an ability for a particular team in a particular department of a particular company to post its own list of desirable knowledge and skills that are required. Such customized lists can be interesting for the students who target particular companies and particular areas.

The main goal of the system is to promote this active ad-hoc approach to education and to form the environment that boosts use of it. The system should attract and involve people by showing interesting examples.

The proposed system possess a property of self-organization, the system that inherently has an ability to catch new directions and trends. It does not matter what the area it is: IT, power generation or economics. The more new knowledge and experience emerge, the more projects that required them are posted on the system and more buzz for these areas appear. As a result, more people will face emerging areas. And this is what we need in fact. There is no task to swap existing institutes (the Univerities, high schools etc.). The system concept is an attempt to catalyze a parallel and independent process, the process that could in time adapt to any changes that appear at high speed. Futurists predict that 25% of the jobs available by the year 2025 will be in positions unknown today.

The system of that kind has more chances than ever before since the very special knowledge, devices and software look as features of the past century and technologies which are common and posses open nature here come to stay. More and more study materials, documentation and SW are available for free via Internet and the only hardware needed in the most cases is a PC (better 2 or 3 networked) and its standard off-the-shelf periphery. The second reason is that the Internet (forums, wikies, blogs) allows to act in ‘one to many’ mode. There is no need to waste time explaining a task for each who is interested. An explanation that is done once is in use for everyone. And of course online collaboration will play a great role.

An important thing is openness. In this context - anyhow the way the process goes it should be visible – intermediate results and current project state must be reflected (presented) in the system. At least the minimum that must be shown are a task definition - 'request for result' and results - what was done, how it was. The best case is when all interim, support and final documents, negotiations, time tables etc (i.e. the whole history of a project - are available for public access (directly on server or links to external places). Possible gradations of openness: totally open, …, closed research (only area of task and opinions on results).

Involved parties

• Companies (employers)
• Students (employees), enthusiasts
• Recruitment companies (they get a resource to trace bright candidates on early stages, meanwhile such companies could coordinate activities within some components of the system)
• Publishing houses (just to sell more books and periodicals, from their part some information support could come)
• Market research agencies, consulting companies (can play roles of mediators and coordinators)
• Venture funds

Benefits for employers

• Recruited people already shaped (at least they’ve got an idea) to current activities at company
• Gain overall students’ competence level
• Tasks which were done successfully
• Reaching talent people from regions
• Company’s promotion (making positive image)

Benefits for students

• Gain motivation and get broader view in current technologies and labor market requirements
• Opportunity to understand what is interesting to work with and what is not in fact before any full-time contracts (before going into industry)
• Actual knowledge and experience
• Opportunity to get grants, part-time contracts via the system
• Opportunity to get over geografical borders in some cases

Implementation
Web-based system, maybe with offline clients. Not to create implementations of existing tech engines, to integrate them or just use in the current context (maybe use external blogs, wikies, CVS (sourceforge.org), instant messaging systems etc.). Cashing information from external resources is possible. Among the known existing open engines (systems) NetProjectJournal looks the most suitable (see here: http://www.npj.ru/node/english_description). Unfortunately, it’s still under development altough it’s already usable.

Inspirations
Open source (www.sourceforge.org , www.osdl.org, code.google.com/summerofcode.htm ), Open source hardware (www.opencores.org, www.openhardware.ru, www.openhardware.de),

shared R&D idea (an article inFinancial Times http://www.rand.org/commentary/082504FT.html ),
www.wikipedia.org, www.intuit.ru, www.e-graduate.ru, www.iec.org, www.innocentive.com,
www.respublikaidei.ru, www.e-generator.ru, www.firststeps.ru, www.freeagent.com)

Examples of tasks to post

• Write a tool to analyze (compare etc) logs
• Deploy Jabber infrastructure (for 50 workplaces)
• Develop a small DB
• Build cluster on old computers
• Deploy an open source ERP (in University)
• Make IT audit - define scope of work. Team that successfully finished a project can define scope of work for another project.
• More broad initiative: digital home open architeture (protocols, components, SW & HW implementation, accent on standard componets, old HW reuse)

Other issues (additional comments)
Companies with well established processes could be more interested in the first two components of the system, while for chaotic and stingy companies the main interest could be in the remaining parts.

To establish and maintain the core system functionality a forum (consortium) of international (Cisco, Siemens, Sun, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Samsung…) and local companies (like Digital Design, CBOSS, Nienshanz…) could be formed. It is especially important for local companies to gain average level of graduates, since global players have more abilities to attract the most interesting people.

The very important thing is strong and aptly targeted marketing of the system.

The system should not be considered as a profitable business, it is rather a strategic social/technological project to develop the ground for further ICT industry growth. Nevertheless if the system works well, points of profit could appear.

The system must not be targeted only at high-school and university students. It could also be a resource for retraining.

The whole engine of the system should allow activities related not only to technical stuff but maybe economical, social, culture, art. The system should be allowed by its born to evolve into something like a project fabric (forum, market, mall…).

Companies make students and techies competitions. All that is known after a competition is often only names of winners. Conditions, results and maybe some intermediate stuff could be placed at the server. In this case distributed teams can be involved.

I classify students into 3 groups (it’s a very rough and subjective division). The question is how it correlates with the reality.

1. those who are interested in nothing (regarding to education)
2. those,who are interested. And they discover and dig out and study by themselves (in borders of standard educational programs and often far beyond the borders – in emerging areas). They not just attend lections and practice, they do a lot more.
3. Others (about 30% - 60%) could potentially be intersted. But it’s hard to begin because it is not, of course, a trivial challenge (and there is no motivation often) – to take control on the education process.

And the idea is to help group #2 - give them a more focused roadmap and a playground for their activity. And to stimulate an incentive for group #3 - to show them that they could do things like those who are in the second group.

Rumors in the St. Petersburg times

TOP STORIES at Issue #1092(58), Tuesday, August 2, 2005:
Russia Google-Eyed at the Possibilities For New IT Parks, By Yuriy Humber

According to unacknowledged information: "Google is interested in setting up a research center with 3,000 staff on a site by St. Petersburg’s State University of Telecommunications, which will act as a base for the IT park".

And what is the source, where we can take such amount of people (especially to satisfy Google requirements)?

Buzz in the St. Petersburg times

The St. Petersburg times published "IT Firms Call for Teaching Refo" By Maria Levitov, July 26, 2005.

I found there some interesting (for me) points to check:

The UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) in Moscow.

"Intel ... works with the Russian Academy of Sciences to formulate up-to-date university curricula". Is it there: http://www.curricula.ru ?

A mysterious "IT Dvizheniye"...

Center for Information Society Development http://www.riocenter.ru/
(looks like state supported organization)

PCWeek/RE Discussion Continues

Продолжение темы (в 2005 году) поднятой Андреем Колесовым на страницах PCWeek/RE.

"Аутсорсинг: что "мы" хотим от вуза, или Какие кадры сегодня нужны" Влад Боркус. Собраны мнения представителей отечественных аутсорсинговых компаний. В частности, Михаилом Македонским (Aplana) поминается возможность "решения ряда внутренних задач [компаний] силами студентов".

"Кому нужны ИТ-таланты?" Анатолий Шалыто (в том числе о том, что очень выдающиеся студенты у нас адекватно не востребованы, если я правильно понял мысль)

"Подготовка ИТ-кадров: что мы хотим от аутсорсинга" Андрей Колесов.
Момент о котором редко вспоминают, цитирую: "... нужно сказать, что очень серьезная ответственность за преодоление разрыва "вуз - работа" лежит на самом студенте. К сожалению, у нас еще бытуют оставшиеся с советских времен представления о том, что поступление в вуз и последующее получение диплома автоматически означает получение работы и определенный карьерный рост по специальности. В результате многие студенты только на старших курсах осознают, что освоение нужных профессиональных навыков требует от них дополнительных усилий".

Computerra (The darkness of education)

Еженедельник «Компьютерра» посвятил проблеме обучения ИТ в отечественных ВУЗах тему номера - "Тьма просвещения" (от 28 июня 2005 года).
Очень символичный cover.

Особый интерес вызвало интервью с Максимом Отставным. Очень мне близко его видение текущей ситуации.

В статье Виталия Дмитриева есть небольшой исторический экскурс (включая сегодняшний день) о роли энтузиастов и самоорганизации в отечественном образовании.

В «послесловии» Леонида Левкович-Маслюка «врезаны» примеры "конвергенции" ИТ-индустрии и образования. Поставлен вопрос о среде «Вопрос в среде - как ее оживить и усилить».

Draft Concept: Russian Edition

Самоорганизующаяся образовательная система

Мотивация
Скорость, с которой сейчас развиваются инфо-коммуникационные технологии, значительно осложняет (если не делает невозможным) формирование своевременных образовательных стандартов и программ для не фундаментальных дисциплин. Государство, особенно в таких странах как Россия, не способно адекватно задавать и поддерживать необходимые направления. В то же время ИТ и телекоммуникационная индустрии ежегодно показывают значительный рост. Соответственно, растет и потребность в квалифицированных специалистах. Текущая ситуация показывает, что количество «продвинутых» выпускников вузов (не полагающихся только на ВУЗовскую программу и практикующих самообучение в актуальных областях) больше не удовлетворяет спрос компаний. С другой стороны у подавляющего большинства студентов отсутствует культура самостоятельно разбираться в том, какие знания и умения будут востребованы в ближайшее время на рынке труда (например, путем просмотра соответствующих объявлений о вакансиях). Наряду с этим в ближайшее время начнет сказываться демографическая ситуация. Очевидно, что в данных условиях, для дальнейшего развития отрасли, сохранения и увеличения конкурентоспособности региона (профессионального уровня и оплаты труда) бизнес должен принимать участие в образовательном процессе. При этом, с учетом нынешнего состояния технологий, такое участие может обходиться значительно меньшими затратами, чем когда-либо ранее.

Концепция системы
Основой служит web-ориентированная платформа. Бизнес (компании) публикует – какие знания и опыт он ожидает от студентов в ближней (1-3 года) и средней (4-6 лет) перспективе. В некоторых случаях формирование таких прогнозов – сложная задача даже для лидирующих на рынке компаний. Тем не менее, в составе крупных компаний есть отделы стратегического планирования, есть маркетинговые аналитические агентства, которые обладают необходимым видением. Для учащихся такая информация будет более весомой, чем исходящая от государства, так как она предоставляется крупными международными и выдающимися локальными компаниями. Ведь именно компании, а не государство рассматриваются как работодатели.

Система должна включать:
1. Перечисление актуальных областей знания с ссылками на материалы для изучения (рекомендованные книги, доступные он-лайновые материалы; только ссылки, не сами материалы).
2. Описания широко распространенных практических задач (вроде обжим витой пары, установка Linux, и его конфигурирование под определенную функциональность, создание плана этажа в AutoCad, чертеж детали в Компас). Публикация подобного списка важна для ориентации – с чем интересно возится, а с чем нет. Скучно заниматься только теорией, должно быть видно, как знания применяются на практике.

Пункты 1 и 2 формируются консолидированными усилиями участников (см. ниже).

1’ и 2’ Конкретные отделы и рабочие группы конкретных компаний вывешивают списки тех знаний и умений (желательно с конкретными рекомендациями по способам их приобретения) владение которыми будет востребовано именно при приходе на практику/работу в данную конкретную команду.
3. Некритичные для текущего бизнеса и доступные для разглашения задачи публикуются в системе (разработка небольших программ, бета-тестирование, оптимизация текущей деятельности (процессов), эксперименты с новыми (свежими) технологиями, неглубокие исследования, в том числе маркетинговые, в том числе в не технических областях). Занятие с искусственными задачами может быть интересным, но лишь до определенного момента. Энтузиазм может и должен поддерживаться задачами из реальной жизни.
4. Энтузиасты для энтузиастов. Публикуются идеи для привлечения к ним других людей с необходимыми навыками и знаниями, или с наличием свободного времени и готовностью работать над реализацией идеи. Например, профессор ищет студентов (ценность в том, что не только в своем ВУЗе) для проверки своей теории, создания ПО или сборки тестовой модели.
5. Энтузиасты для значительной задачи. Группа [команда] («продвинутых» студентов старших курсов, с некоторым опытом) публикует описание своих способностей и заявляет о своей готовности реализовать проект, в пределах своей компетенции.
6. Некоторые функции бизнес инкубатора. Так как вполне возможно, что часть проектов может перерасти в start-up компании.
7. Для относительно сложных проектов движок системы должен включать определенные функции ПО управления проектами (project tracking, управление версиями, документами) и поддержку совместной работы в режиме online. Интеграция с другими системами (sourceforge CVS, блоги). Среда должна формировать культуру грамотного управления проектами.
8. Система рейтингов (по аналогии с E-Bay). Публикаторы задач и их исполнители выставляют оценки друг другу. Если какая-либо из сторон проявила себя не с лучшей стороны – это должно быть зафиксировано в системе. Компании, имеющие положительную историю, с одной стороны будут притягивать больше людей для своих новых проектов, с другой – интересные открытые реализованные проекты, в целом, улучшают имидж компании, в первую очередь как работодателя. Рейтинг актуальных областей знания и стандартных задач.

Основная задача системы – продвигать и пропагандировать подобный ad-hoc подход к обучению и формировать среду, которая бы способствовала развитию такого подхода.

В свойства такой системы входит способность к самоорганизации, эта система, которая по своей природе способна отслеживать появляющиеся направления и тенденции, и не важно в ИТ области, в энергетике, в экономике и так далее и адаптироваться к ним. Чем больше востребованы те или иные знания, тем больше открывается проектов их требующих, тем выше интерес и, вообще, уровень шума. И тем больше людей соприкасается с новой востребованной областью, что, собственно, и требуется. Задача, заменить существующие институты (в широком смысле), не ставится, система – это попытка катализировать параллельный и независимый процесс, способный своевременно адаптироваться к быстрым изменениям. (По прогнозам футурологов к 2025 году 25% специальностей будут составлять те, которых сейчас не существует).
Описываемая система сейчас имеет больше шансов, чем когда-либо, так как очень специальные и специфичные (сакральные) знания и уникальное и дорогостоящее оборудование и ПО становятся приметами ушедшего века, в то время как унифицированные, открытые стандарты и технологии, работающие на дешевых стандартных комплектующих, проникают в отрасль за отраслью с нарастающей скоростью. В Интернете в свободном доступе появляется все больше и больше материалов и документации, как и ПО с открытым исходным кодом. Причем, чем новее технология, тем лучше она освещена. В подавляющем большинстве случаев необходимое аппаратное обеспечение – это не самый новый ПК, со стандартными комплектующими; максимум, что может понадобиться это локальная сеть из 2-3 ПК. Другое явление нашего времени, это то, что с помощью Интернета (форумы, вики, блоги) появилась возможность взаимодействовать в режиме 'один ко многим'. То есть, нет необходимости тратить время на объяснение задачи каждому заинтересовавшемуся. Объяснение, сделанное однажды и уточненное несколько раз, доступно всем. И, конечно, возможность совместной работы посредством Интернет предоставляет новый уровень возможностей.
Открытость имеет особое значение. Не важно как идет процесс, важно, что максимально возможная часть активности должна быть доступна для всеобщего просмотра (промежуточные документы, текущий статус). Как минимум необходимо публиковать постановку задачи (без подробностей) - 'request for result' и результаты (что было сделано и насколько хорошо и детально). Наилучший вариант, когда все промежуточные и финальные документы, переговоры, графики работ и.т.п. (т.е. вся история проекта) доступны для всех. Учитывая специфику некоторых возможных задач, тем не менее, имеет смысл иметь несколько градаций открытости: от «полностью открытый» до «закрытый проект», в последнем случае в открытом доступе находится только область задачи и мнение о выполнении задачи.

Заинтересованные стороны (участники)
Компании
Студенты, аспиранты, не относящиеся к первым двум категориям энтузиасты
Рекрутинговые компании (получают возможность отслеживать выдающихся кандидатов на ранних этапах, в тоже время с их стороны возможна координационная деятельность некоторых компонентов системы)
Издательские дома (просто чтобы продавать больше продукции. С их стороны информационная поддержка)
Маркетинговые и консалтинговые компании (в качестве консультантов, посредников, координаторов)
Венчурные фонды

Интерес для компаний
Возможность набора людей уже соприкоснувшихся с деятельностью компании
Повышение общего уровня компетенции (студентов)
Успешно выполненные задачи
Привлечение выдающихся людей из регионов
Создание положительного имиджа (образа) компании

Интерес для студентов
Повышение мотивации и улучшение ориентации в современных технологиях и рынке труда.
Возможность понять, чем интересно заниматься, а чем нет, до начала профессиональной деятельности (до полноценного контракта)
Получение актуального опыта и знаний
Возможность получения грантов, временных контрактов

Реализация
Система, основанная на web-интерфейсе, возможно, с офф-лайн клиентами. Ни в коем случае не создавать реинкарнации существующих систем (блоги, вики, CVS на sourceforge.org), интегрировать и использовать их в контексте системы. Возможно кэширование информации внешних источников. Из известных на данный момент готовых (но сыроватых) и открытых движков (систем) наиболее подходящей выглядит НетПроектЖурнал - www.npj.ru (распространяется на условиях GPL лицензии).

Inspirations
Open source (http://www.sourceforge.org/ , http://www.osdl.org/, code.google.com/summerofcode.htm ),
shared R&D idea (статья в Financial Times http://www.rand.org/commentary/082504FT.html ),
http://www.iec.org/, http://www.innocentive.com/, http://www.respublicaidei.ru/, http://www.e-generator.ru/, http://www.e-graduate.ru/,
http://www.wikipedia.org/, http://www.freeagent.com/.

Примеры возможных задач
Написать небольшую программу (например, для анализа/сравнения логов)
Развернуть Jabber инфраструктуру (например, на 50 клиентов)
Разработать небольшую базу данных (например, для прототипирования будущей серьезной базы)
Создать кластер из нескольких старых компьютеров
Развернуть open source систему электронного документооборота в ВУЗе
Сделать ИТ-аудит – определить scope of work. Команда, успешно выполнившая проект в некоторой области, может проработать постановку задачи для похожего проекта.

Дополнительные замечания
Компании, с хорошо поставленными процессами, с устоявшейся историей, скорее будут заинтересованы, в основном, в первых двух компонентах системы. Хаотичные и прижимистые компании, наоборот, могут больше заинтересоваться в остальных компонентах.
Для запуска и поддержки основной функциональности системы, может быть создано нечто, вроде, консорциума крупных международных (Cisco, Sun, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Siemens, Samsung) и активных локальных компаний (Digital Design, CBOSS, Nienshanz…). Для локальных компаний, особенно важно повышать средний уровень компетенции, так как глобальным игрокам проще заполучить наиболее выдающихся молодых сотрудников (зарплаты, корпоративная культура и.т.п.).
На этапе запуска очень важен сильный и продуманный маркетинг системы.

Система не должна рассматриваться как бизнес (приносящий прибыль). Это скорее стратегический социально-технологический (некоммерческий) проект по созданию предпосылок для дальнейшего роста ИКТ и, возможно, других индустрий. Тем не менее, если проект окрепнет, источники прибыли (связанные с системой способы получения прибыли) могут появиться.
Система должна быть направлена не только на студентов, это может быть и площадкой для переквалификации. Проекты в системе не ограничены только ИТ областями – экономика, социальная сфера, энергетика, промышленность, культура. Система должна иметь врожденную способность к эволюционированию в нечто, вроде фабрики (форума, молла) проектов, имеющих открытую и, в большинстве случаев, некоммерческую природу.
Компании устраивают состязания (конкурсы) среди студентов и профессионалов. Как правило, все, что известно после его проведения это имена победителей. Сайт системы мог бы служить или (виртуальным) местом проведения таких мероприятий (хранить условия, регистрировать участников, фиксировать результаты) или просто вести их историю и анонсировать будущие. Движок системы может сделать возможным эффективное состязание виртуальных команд.

Google goes the same way

Похоже, что Google скоро станет более влиятельной компанией чем Cisco и Microsoft. Компания выступила вот с такой инициативой (вполне можно сказать, что это реализация части идеи
ad-hoc education).

В преддверие студенческих каникул компания Google предложила всем желающим, кто имеет навыки
и знания в области программирования, применить их с пользой и принять участие в Программе
Summer of Code. http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html Смысл инициативы — разработка индивидуальных проектов в рамках Open Source
для решения актуальных задач, связанных с развитием передовых технологий. Кандидатам
предлагалось присылать заявки со своими идеями либо воспользоваться предложениями компаний,
университетов и open source инициатив опубликованными на указанном сайте в Интернете. Каждый
одобренный проект должен быть завершен к концу лета. После его успешного принятия Google
обязуется выплатить исполнителю гонорар в размере $4500.Первоначально предполагалось отобрать 200 кандидатов. К дате окончания приема заявок, 14
июня, компания получила свыше 8700 предложений. Учитывая новизну предложений, Google
расширила лимит участия вдвое, доведя его до 800 человек.

Internet University of IT in Russia

There is the Internet University of IT in Russia http://www.intuit.ru/.
Unfortunately is has no state status, but the initiative has to be praised and well-known. The idea is to allow everyone to gain professional skills and even to get a new specialty in IT area via e-learning using free courses on the web site. This system already works and plenty of courses are available. I have browsed through forums at the mentioned site and found students asking for trial (educational) projects to implement, so the study would not be pure theoretical issue.

My best whishes to the project and the people behind them!

To catch new directions and trends

As I’ve understood from the discussion with Sergey Naumenko, I am trying to describe the system with property of self-organization, the system that inherently has an ability to catch new directions and trends. And it does not matter what area it is: IT, power generation or economics. As much new knowledge and experience are emerging as more projects that required them are posted on the system and more buzz for this area appears.

How to search for free educational materials

Of course, I thought that there are a lot of free online courses exists. But the thing is that it is possible to get info about them in the centralized places e.g. http://creativecommons.org/education/The left side bar of the mentioned web page already contains some interested links.

Existing engine for the system

It seems that an interesting engine has appeared in Russia. Upgraded it’s probably can carry the functionality of the ad-hoc education system. Ekaterinburg based company Naumen http://www.naumen.com/go offers this thing (citation): NauLearning is e-Learning authoring, publication and management system, it is intended for working out educational programs and conducting distance learning by educational establishments and departments with different occupations.

Earlier they positioned themselves as developers of open source products. Now I could not find any signs that they follow this business model. More detailed (but still stingy) description of NauLearning in Russian is given here:
http://www.naumen.ru/go/products/naulearning/naulearning_university

www.sourceforge.org for non Software projects

The system can carry the functionality of what http://www.sourceforge.org does for development of open source software, but for all projects that possesses open and non-a-pure business nature.

For example it can host (support) projects like this: Fancy City Without Problems Contest
http://www.csr-nw.ru/en/events.php?code=48

in Russian: http://fancy.dp.ru

The latest talks on IT education in Russian periodicals. The problem exists.

Мнения от образования:
«IT News» №10'2004: «Я не говорю, что там учатся плохие студенты. Просто система у нас так работает», Интервью с Владимиром Парфеновым.
http://itnews.finestreet.ru/mgz/?id=34
Упомянута проблема, о которой редко говорят: потеря интереса и мотивации студентами. Система, которую я предлагаю, как раз может повысить интерес…

PC Week, #35(449)/2004 «А ларчик просто открывался», Анатолий Шалыто
http://kis.pcweek.ru/Year2004/N35/CP1251/Opinions/chapt1.htm
В статье имеются ссылки на другие материалы по теме и на движение за открытую документацию.

Наблюдения со стороны ИТ-прессы:
PC Week/RE N 32/2004, "Академическая подготовка ИТ-специалистов. Есть проблемы?", Андрей Колесов. Ссылка на авторский вариант:
http://www.visual.2000.ru/kolesov/pcweek/2004/40825ite.htm
Имеется метафора «моста» между производством и образованием. Высказана идея о том, что еще и мнение студентов надо спрашивать. Как-то забывают у нас об этом. Ad-hoc education как раз может поработать таким «мостом» и подразумевает, что студенты работают над интересующими их проектами, а неинтересные, с их точки зрения (по разным причинам), проекты остаются в тени.

Взгляд из индустрии (снизу, а потом мнения сверху):
"Компьютерра" №4 от 1 февраля 2005 года «Как вырастить армию хороших программистов и поднять объем экспорта ПО? Взгляд «от сохи»», Сергей Науменко
http://offline.computerra.ru/2005/576/37511/
Крик души. Многие ощущения автора очень мне понятны. Особый интерес у меня вызвал подход Давида Яна, разделяю и присоединяюсь.

Взгляд из индустрии (сверху):
CRN, #24 (173)/2002, Специальный выпуск #4/2002 «Тенденции и перспективы 2003».
НЕ ТОЛЬКО ГОСУДАРСТВЕННАЯ ПРОБЛЕМА, Георгий Генс
http://www.lanit.ru/crn24_02.html

Некоторая статистика:
Мир ПК, #10/2004 «Подготовка ИТ-специалистов в России», А. Г. Сухарев
http://www.osp.ru/pcworld/2004/10/099.htm

Comment on the draft

Примечание к тексту: я вижу 3 группы студентов (грубое разделение).

1 - которым, в принципе, ничего не интересно.
2 - которым интересно и они в состоянии ковыряться самостоятельно вне рамок "ВУЗовской программы" (а не просто посещать лекции и лабы).
И ковыряются.
3- остальные 30%-60% от всего числа, в принципе, могут заинтересоваться. Но сами не могут начать, потому что, ну нетривиально все-таки. И
мотивации нет!

И моя идея, как раз, раскачать и дать начало к действию группе 3 и
облегчить жизнь и дать болше возможностей группе 2.

Draft Concept

Active ad-hoc education

Motivation

CIS Region
The speed of changes in IT & telecoms makes it very difficult to define education standards and programs in non-fundamental disciplines. The State (especially in countries like Russia) has no ability to set directions in this area. Meanwhile the industry shows strong growth every year. Accordingly the need of qualified employees grows too. The current situation is that the number of advanced students (who do not relay on University program and practice self-education) can not satisfy companies’ needs anymore. And there is no culture among students to investigate what knowledge and skills will be expected (e.g. by reading job postings). Moreover demographic issues are going to start affecting the labor market in the nearest years. So to allow further development and save (secure) competitiveness of the region (cost of workforce and high professional level) the business should play an appreciable role in educational process, which could be done in some aspects without spending many resources on it.

Worldwide
It seems that the lack of IT professionals will remain for years in all parts of the world. At least if we do approximation of previous times. There are countries where the situation is similar to Russia although.

Concept
An online system can be established that will allow creating and boosting positive processes. Business publishes what knowledge and experience it expects from graduates. Sometimes it is not so easy even for technology leading companies to precisely predict areas that will emerge, but they've got strategy planning teams and there are market research agencies. They can put their vision. It could be more valuable for students when not the government institutes, but top companies and brightest local ones say what to learn and what to do. Because companies give jobs and they (at least in theory) know what they need.

The system should contain:
1. Scope of areas to learn with appropriate resources to study (recommended books and online materials – only links, not content)
2. Standard actual tasks (Linux installation, apache configuration, punching UTP cable, make a floor plan in AutoCAD…) Practice is very essential. It is boring to study without playing with real things.
3. Open, non-critical for current business tasks which companies post on the system (e.g. small tools development, beta-testing, process optimization, playing with frontier technologies, light research, market research even in non-tech areas). It is all interesting to play in a sandbox but it can not always drive mad with enthusiasm. Contact with the real world is important.
4.1 Enthusiasts search for enthusiasts. Posts of ideas to implement. (E.g. a professor search for student(s) to implement his/her idea)
4.2 Enthusiasts search for a serious task. Team with relatively comprehensive skills (4-5 year at an institute or the University) looks for an interesting project (idea) to implement.
4.3 Some incubator function (seeding startups). Projects started from 3, 4.1 & 4.2 could evolve into new original businesses.
5. For relatively complicated tasks the system’s engine should support some project management functionality (that supports online collaboration, project tracking; allows integration (at least links) with other new systems like sourceforge, blogs etc). It is important that the system should establish proper project management culture.
6. Rating system - E-bay alike (task openers and task doers rank each other).

The main goal of the system is to promote this active ad-hoc approach to education and to form the environment that boosts use of it. The system should attract and involve people by showing interesting examples.

The system of that kind has more chances then ever before since the very special knowledge, devices and software look as the sign of the last century and technologies which are common and posses open nature here come to stay. More and more study materials, documentation and SW are available for free via Internet and the only hardware needed in the most cases is a PC (better networked 2 or 3) and its standard off-the-shelf periphery.
An important thing is openness. In this context - anyhow the way the process goes it should be visible – intermediate results and current project state must be presented on the system. At least it is must to show task definition - 'request for result' and results - what was done, how it was. The best case is when all interim, support and final documents, negotiations, time tables etc (I mean whole history of a project - are available for public access (directly on server or links to external places). Possible gradations of openness: totally open, …, closed research (only area of task and opinions on results).
Companies make student and techies competitions. All that is known after the competition is often only names of winners. Conditions, results and maybe some intermediate stuff could be placed at the server. In this case distributed teams can be involved.

Involved parties
Immediate companies (employers)
Students (employees)
Recruitment companies
Publishing houses (just to sell more books and periodicals)
Market research agencies, consulting companies
Venture funds

Benefits for employers
Results of tasks which were done successfully
Recruited people already shaped (at least they’ve got an idea) to current activities at company
Gain overall level of students
Company’s promotion (making positive image)
Reaching talent people from regions

Implementation
Web-based system, maybe with offline clients.
Not to create reincarnations of existing tech engines, to integrate them or just use in a current context (maybe use external blogs, wikies, CVS (sourceforge.org), IM etc.). Cashing information from external resources is possible.

Inspirations
Open source, OSDL, shared R&D, iec.org, respublicaidei.ru, e-generator.ru, innocentive.com, wikipedia.org, freeagent.com, e-graduate.ru.

Examples of tasks to post
Write a tool to analyze (compare etc) logs
Deploy Jabber infrastructure (for 50 workplaces)
Develop a small DB
Build cluster on old computers
Deploy an open source ERP (in University)
Make IT audit - define scope of work. Team that successfully finished a project can define scope of work for another.

Other issues
Companies with well established processes could be more interesting in the first two components of the system, whilst for chaotic and stingy companies main interest could be parts: 3, 4.1&4.2.
To establish and maintain the core system functionality a forum (consortium) of international (Cisco, Sun, MS, HP, Siemens, Samsung…) and local companies (Digital Design, CBOSS, Nienshanz…) could be formed. It is especially important for local companies to gain average level of graduates, since global players have more abilities to attract most interesting people.

The very important thing is strong and aptly targeted marketing of the system.

The system should not be considered as a profitable business, it is rather a strategic social project to develop the ground for further ICT industry growth. Nevertheless if the system will function well, points of profit could appear.
The system must not be targeted only on high-school students. It could be also a resource for retraining.
The whole engine of the system should allow activities related not only to technical stuff but maybe economical, social, culture, art. The system should be allowed by its born to evolve into something like a project fabric (forum, market…).