Petrova M. M.

"St. Cyril and St. Methodius" University of Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria

WEB-BASED DISTANCE LEARNING IN "ST. CYRIL AND ST. METHODIUS" UNIVERSITY OF VELIKO TURNOVO

The distance learning is an undisputed fact in the new active educational areas of the contemporary community. With the decree for state’s requirements for organizing a distance form of education in the universities (SN No.99/09.11.2004) even uncertainly and timidly, the distance learning starts being a practice in the Bulgarian education as well.

In Bulgaria’s condition, the educational technologies without using audio- and videoconferences remain the most possible for now. Although all universities try to bring in the distance learning, full educational processes (subjects) and their isolation as an independent distance form of education are still not included.

The distance education in "St. Cyril and st. Methodius" Veliko Turnovo University is realized by eight master programs, according to the European Community Course Transfer System (ECTS).

Programme resources (modules) for organization and tracking of the process of distance learning in an integrated programme-informational environment in "St. Cyril and St. Methodius" University (www.cet-vtu.com) are:

1. Administrative module. Provides: a)Setting the included modules; b)Registration of the users from the all seven categories (guest, student, teacher, inspector, dean, rector, administrator). For every category of users, particular interface is provided (according to the given access permissions) and own range of service possibilities are accessible, provided by the program-informational environment; c)Setting and including additional modules (used in the education process on one or another subjects), like: list of the school groups, chat groups on particular subjects) teleconferences on subjectsl message boards, lists for sending and etc.

2. Module for administrating the education process. Performs functions of electronic Dean (provides a wide range of administrative functions in organization and implementing the education process).

3. Module Electronic department “Frames”. Provides creating and doing the personal acts of the users from the different categories.

4. Module for preparation and publishing the curriculum. Provides the necessary conditions for preparation and publishing curriculums.

5. Electronic library. Provides adding, saving and loading informational resources corresponding to the access rights of the users.

6. Module for rating and control of the knowledge. Provides organizing of incoming, intermediate and end control.

7. Maintains the statistic processing of the educations process results.

8. Module for statistic and financial-accounting and organizational-ordering documents. Providing the collecting and processing the statistic data; Maintains financial-accounting documents; Maintains organizational-ordering documents.

9. Module for communication via E-mail, discussion forum and chat-system. Includes: E-mail; Chat system; Discussion forum

The characteristics of the designed environment allow operatively adding and updating the content of the courses; new courses can be created in a short period of time.

An important advantage of the designed environment is the feature for implementing changes on any level of developing and using.

The web-based version has been applied since 2003 y. in the “Organization and management of the education” subject, distance form of education, and it has reported very good results in the mastering of practical knowledge, skills and competences.