Disertācijas (PPMF) / Doctoral Theses

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Browsing Disertācijas (PPMF) / Doctoral Theses by Author "Gorbāns, Imants"

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    Izšķirošās IKT izvēles nākamās digitālās dekādes robežšķirtnē Latvijas skolu izglītības politikas veidošanas sistēmā : promocijas darbs Vadības doktora zinātniskā grāda iegūšanai, apakšnozare: izglītības vadība
    (2008-11-26) Gorbāns, Imants; Geske, Andrejs; Latvijas Universitāte
    Research of the possibilities of implementation of open source software in schools of Latvia under the framework of the system determined by a complex of changes in education and ICT innovation choices. The work deals with several conclusive decisions to be taken concerning the education system of Latvia in the nearest few years because of the world entering the next digital decade, which is accompanied not only by essential changes in the computer infrastructure and its use, but also because of the changes in society in general, among them in the management methods, conceptions and consequently in the sphere of education and education management (EM) in particular. The work is devoted to the theoretical and practical foundations of the changes accentuating the possibilities and aspects of using open source software (OSS) in the study process in schools of Latvia and paying great attention to the operating system, office software and the development of internet, including e-learning, offered options, treating these issues in the context of the impact of wide ranging changes going on in the sphere of information and communication technologies (ICT) on education management. The main research methods used in the work are online poll, questionnaires, processing data of OECD PISA and IEA SITES international comparative research data with the help of statistic methods, model designing and Monte-Carlo simulations of economic factors. The data obtained show that judging from the answers given to direct questions 2/3 people of Latvia belonging to internet circles support wider implementation of OSS freeware (among them GNU/Linux and OpenOffice.org, Firefox , MOODLE a. o.) in schools and institutions of higher education of Latvia, but only 1/7 of the respondents of the poll expressed readiness to migrate to OSS. Whereas the calculations of data entropy of indirect questions show that most probably half of our society tend to supporting the implementation of OSS and almost as many are for retaining the existing situation. The doctorate work investigates this contradictory situation, the causes of it, solutions, predictions and recommendations to different groups of society. The work also discusses the economic, strategic and informatics didactic aspects of the issues concerning the implementation of OSS in the study process of Latvia’s schools. The more significant results are analysed in the context of research carried out by the European Union (EU) and the development of education policy. The author offers several OSS implementation models, out of which the most optimal are based on introducing OSS, installing them on new computers and providing programs for raising the efficiency of computer administrators and teachers and keep the traditional software on the old computers, at the same time supporting the rights of schools to choose and favour the installation of dual-boot computers in school computer classes; another model to introduce could be devoting approximately 10 % of the study time of information science subject to OSS. The work also touches upon issues on the situation in the spheres of ICT and education policy in Latvia differing from that in several other EU countries, as a result of which the existing overwhelming proportion of Microsoft a. o. proprietary, closed source software (CSS) versus OSS will continue. Measures are to be taken to encourage the spread of OSS as it is done in case of campaigns of bio-fuel and in many other cases. The uniting factor of OSS and CSS is Web 2.0 internet development, including e-learning. The population of Latvia is ready for innovations but things cannot be left by themselves. The perspectives of 4introducing them depend on the fact whether educators have a clear idea of the education policy and the future vision of education as such or it will lag behind the development of society. Education faces a set of new tasks: to make changes in school curricula, standards, technical means and first of all in methods. What is going on in school should correspond to what is going on in society concerning the changes in ICT. ICT are too much linked with emotions and money, actually it must be an ordinary component of education and education management that points to the necessity to educate society observing the complimentary principle in this sphere. In order to describe and explain more precisely this position aimed at stimulating active participation of Latvia’s education management in the processes of developing knowledge economy, a new concept has been introduced: multipolar many-levelled ICT society.