Individual Project

Objectives and competences

The main goal of the course is for student to define, develop and defend their own OE project. Projects may be selected from a variety of different contexts, such as economic development, human rights, teaching and learning, access to education. Project should have an interdisciplinary character and should focus on a topic of concrete relevance for a selected OE organization, NGO, company, government, or educational institution. This may include OE strategy development, assessment or deployment, OE business and organisational aspects, creation of a course. Students will have the opportunity to participate in the existing project of the selected mentors. Research work will be performed under the supervision of the selected mentor (regular meetings) and a specialist from the company, if applicable for a given research project. Project topic will be defined in such a way, that students can later upgrade and broaden it in the frame of their master thesis. This will allow students to solve more complex problems related to their project. Knowledge and skills obtained in this course will help student in the master thesis preparation. Additionally, it can also serve as a relevant reference in their further professional career.

Students will acquire the following competences:

-Select projects based on viability for a given timeframe: short, medium, or long-term;
-Develop specific expertise in OE areas relevant for concrete societal, organisational, governmental or business needs;
-Develop skills specific to selected OE area as a result of project participation, such as publishing, economic development, technology, teaching and learning;
-Know the complete process and procedures to implement and deploy OE and OL at chosen level, i.e. international, national or organisational;
-Ability to explore novel methods and concepts and to be creative in developing strategies, models and/or contents;
-Master management of OE projects,
-Master methodologies of the research work;
-Ability to solve real problems by using research approaches;
-Ability to present their project in a written form and orally, and to discuss about the project and OE topics with international audience.

Prerequisites

Students should have knowledge from the following Year 1 courses: Introduction to Open Education, Technologies for Open Education, Effective Didactical Practices in Open Education. They should be ready to implement their own OL course that will follow the needs of a real user. They should be opened to new approaches and creative design of OE solutions.

Content

• Selection of the topic based on appropriate organisational attributes, project viability, and social impact
• Literature search and search for other sources of information
• Individual research work under mentor’s supervision
• Problem definition
• Research and development work needed to solve the defined problem
• Implementation of a particular part of OE or OL
• Delivering a written report about the project
• Oral presentation of the project

Intended learning outcomes

Knowledge and skills:

  • Students gain knowledge about complete design and implementation of OE and OL by using research work and innovative ideas as well.

  • They understand the overall process of the learning system transformation towards flexible and open education. They are able to devise policies and/or rules as well as the internal OL system of an organisation linked to HRM.

  • They are capable of running and managing OE and OL as well as developing complete strategies of OE and OL.

  • Students gain the ability to solve real problems by a scientific approach. They are also able to critically assess their work, present it in a written form and orally, and discuss about it with international audience.

Readings

Readings will be specified by mentors and will depend on the project topic.

Assessment

• Interim progress evaluation (20%) • Project report (50%) • Oral presentation and discussion (30%)

Lecturer's references

Suzana Loshkovska je leta 1988 diplomirala, leta 1992 pa magistrirala iz računalništva in avtomatizacije na Fakulteti za elektrotehniko v Skopju. Doktorirala je na Tehniški univerzi na Dunaju, Avstrija, leta 1995. Je redna profesorica računalništva in vodja Oddelka za programsko inženirstvo na Fakulteti za računalništvo in strojništvo, “Ss. Cirila in Metoda “ v Skopju. Kot raziskovalka in pedagoginja se ukvarja s programiranjem, vizualizacijo, interakcijo človek-računalnik, navidezno resničnostjo, vizulaizacijo v medicini in s tehnološko podprtim učenjem. Suzana Loshkovska ima več kot 25 let izkušenj s poučevanjem in mentoriranjem dodiplomskih in podiplomskih študentov na področjih programiranja, medicinske informatike, vsebinskega iskanja slik, vizualizacije in interakcije človek-računalnik. Prav tako ima več kot 10 let izkušenj pri razvoju in zagotavljanju kakovosti študijskih programov v visokem šolstvu. Kot mentorica se je takoj od začetka aktivno vključila v program Open Education for a Better World, kjer sodeluje v mednarodnih projektnih skupinah.

Prof. Suzana Loshkovska, Ph.D. received the bachelor and master degrees in computer science and automation from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Skopje, in 1988 and 1992, respectively, and the Ph.D. from the Technical University of Wien, Wien, Austria in 1995. She is a full professor of Computer Science and the head of the Department of Software Engineering at the Faculty of Computer Science Engineering, “Ss. Cyril and Methodius” University in Skopje. Her research interests include programming, visualization, human-computer interaction, virtual reality, medical imaging, and technologically enhanced learning. Suzana Loshkovska has over 25 years of experience in teaching, supervising and guidance of undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of programming, medical informatics, content-based image retrieval, visualization and human-computer interaction. Also, she has over 10 years of experience in developing and ensuring quality assurance of study programs for higher education institutions. She entered the Open Education for a Better World program as a mentor from the very beginning, and acts as a mentor in international teams.

Selected bibliography:

DIMITROVSKI, Ivica, KOCEV, Dragi, LOSKOVSKA, Suzana, DZEROSKI Saso, Improving bag-of-visual-words image retrieval with predictive clustering trees. Inf. Sci., 2016, 329: 851-865

KITANOVSKI, Ivica, STREZOSKI, Gjogrgji, DIMITROVSKI, Ivica, MADJAROV Gjorgji, LOSKOVSKA, Suzana "Multimodal medical image retrieval system." Multimedia Tools and Applications, 2016: 1-24

DIMITROVSKI, Ivica, KOCEV, Dragi, KITANOVSKI Ivica, LOSKOVSKA, Suzana, DŽEROSKI, Sasho, "Improved medical image modality classification using a combination of visual and textual features." Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics 39, 2015: 14-26

TROJACANEC, Katarina, KITANOVSKI, Ivan, DIMITROVSKI, Ivica, & LOSHKOVSKA, Suzana, Medical Image Retrieval for Alzheimer’s Disease Using Data from Multiple Time Points. In ICT Innovations 2015, Springer International Publishing, 2016, pp. 215-224.

TROJACANEC, Katarina, KITANOVSKI, Ivan, DIMITROVSKI, Ivica, LOSHKOVSKA, Suzana, & Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. Medical Image Retrieval for Alzheimer’s Disease Using Structural MRI Measures. In Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, Springer International Publishing, 2015, pp. 126-141.

TROJACANEC Katarina, KITANOVSKI Ivan, DIMITROVSKI Ivica & LOSHKOVSKA Suzana. Content Based Retrieval of MRI Based on Brain Structure Changes in Alzheimer’s Disease. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Bioimaging (BIOSTEC 2015), 2015, pages 13-22., ISBN 978-989-758-072-7, DOI: 10.5220/0005182200130022.

DIMITROVSKI, Ivica, KOCEV, Dragi, LOSKOVSKA, Suzana, DZˇEROSKI, Sasho. "Fast and efficient visual codebook construction for multi-label annotation using predictive clustering trees", Pattern Recognition Letters, 2014, vol. 38: 38–45

TROJACANEC, Katarina, KITANOVSKI, Ivan, DIMITROVSKI, Ivica, & LOSHKOVSKA, Suzana. New Representation of Information Extracted from MRI Volumes Applied to Alzheimer’s Disease. In ICT Innovations 2014, Springer International Publishing, pp. 249-258.

DIMITROVSKI, Ivica, KOCEV, Dragi, LOSKOVSKA, Suzana, DŽEROSKI, Sašo, Hierarchical classification of diatom images using ensembles of predictive clustering trees, Ecological Informatics, 2012, vol. 7 19–29

GRANDBASTIEN, Monique, LOSKOVSKA, Suzana, NOWAKOWSKI, Samuel, JOVANOVIC, Jelena, Using online presence data for recommending human resources in the OP4L project. RecSysTEL@EC-TEL 2012: 89-94

FETAJI, Majlinda, LOSKOVSKA, Suzana, FETAJI, Bekim, EBIBI, Mirlinda, Usability of Virtual Learning Environment for Learning Java, Proceedings of the 3rd Balkan Conference in Informatics, Sept. 27-29, 2007, Vol.1, 523-534

FETAJI, Majlinda, LOSKOVSKA, Suzana, FETAJI, Bekim, EBIBI, Mirlinda, Investigating Human Computer Interaction Issues in Designing Efficient Virtual Learning Environments, Proceedings of the 3rd Balkan Conference in Informatics, Sept. 27-29, 2007, Vol.2, 313-324

FETAJI, Majlinda, LOSKOVSKA, Suzana, FETAJI, Bekim, EBIBI, Mirlinda, Combining Virtual Learning Environment and Integrated Development Environment to Enhance e-Learning, Proceedings of the ITI 2007 29th Int. Conference in Information Technology Interfaces, June 25-27, Croatia, 319-324

FETAJI, Majlinda, LOSKOVSKA, Suzana, FETAJI, Bekim, Software Engineering Interactive Virtual Learning Environment, ED-MEDIA 2007-World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommuniactions, 939-944

FETAJI, Majlinda, LOSKOVSKA, Suzana, FETAJI, Bekim, EBIBI, Mirlinda, Assesing and Developing a Graphical User Interfaces for Virtual Environments, ED-MEDIA 2007-World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommuniactions, 843-848

Projects
Researcher, Tools and Techniques for Improving and Supporting Begginers Programming Learning (contination of the project), National project funded by FCSE, 2016-2017

Researcher, Tools and Techniques for Improving and Supporting Begginers Programming Learning (contination of the project), National project funded by FCSE, 2015-2016

Researcher, CODE – advanced web-based learning environment for learing programming (contination of the project),, National project funded by FCSE, 2014-2015

Researcher, CODE – advanced web-based learning environment for learing programming, National project funded by FCSE, 2013-2014

Macedonian team coordinator, "Online Presence for Learning“,SEE_ERA.NET Plus, 2010-2012

Macedonian team coordinator „Enhancing the quality of distance learning at Western Balkan higher education institutions“,511126-TEMPUS-1-2010-1-RS-TEMPUS-SMGR, 2010-2013

Independent expert, "M.Sc. Cirriculum in Е-learning” , Tempus ЈЕP - 41016 – 2006, 2006-2009