SHS Web of Conferences 50, 01186 (2018) https://doi.org/10.
1051/shsconf/20185001186
CILDIAH-2018
Database Strategy in Development of Digital Ecosystem for
Quality Control in Education
Ivan Evdokimov1,*, Halina Danilava2, Tatiana Yamskikh1, and Roman Tsarev1
1Siberian Federal University, 79 Svobodny Prospect, Krasnoyarsk, Russia
2Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics, 6 P. Brovki Street, Minsk, Belarus
Abstract. The purpose of this research in educational environment is to improve the quality of the
educational process with the help of new information technologies. The paper examines practical
issues of digital ecosystems implementation in education on the basis of relational databases, as,
from the authors’ point of view, in the organization data are less subject to change in time than
business processes. Therefore the strategy of information systems development where the database
functions as a cornerstone provides the result, that is more stable than, for example, a functional
approach in software development. Within the frames of this research information technologies of
quality control in education are being created. They are intended for the exact and full
representation of teaching materials as a system used as a source of information for the assessment
of learning and teaching materials and creation of electronic resources on this platform. The
structure of the created database, operation practices and topical issues of its introduction in more
large-scale digital ecosystems are considered. As a result the database ready for use as a
management solution for higher education institutions is created. This is important as information
technologies provide additional opportunities for the development in the sphere of higher education,
quality improvement of the educational process. The authors conclude that introduction of
innovative information technologies in management system of higher education institution is
relevant and perspective.
1 Introduction more flexible, capable to adapt to changing external and
internal conditions.
Development of an effective education system is an Now the information system of the enterprise is
invariable priority of State policy. developed as a project. Project is a temporary endeavor
At the present moment, the problem of development undertaken to change a particular system. It has specific
and deployment of new technologies based on the goals and their achievement means the end of the project
methods which increase the efficiency and quality of which should be executed over a fixed period and within
educational process [1-3] is very important as certain cost, resources, risks and organizational structure.
information technologies penetrated into all fields of The process of creating an effective information
human activity. This will create opportunities for system includes several stages:
supplying all branches of the national economy with the - data collection and analysis;
qualified employees. - database design and implementation (creation of
The auxiliary software is widely used for the domain model, logical and physical design);
educational purposes. Moreover, there have appeared - generating user interface to work with the existing
learning management systems, such as Moodle, database and visual representation of information.
SharePointLMS [4, 5]. However some spheres of The development of such a system is considered in
management in education still wait for professional this paper. One of the main stages in the design process
developers, in particular the provision of learning and was study of problem domain and creation of
teaching materials [6, 7]. hierarchical domain model. The domain model has
Besides, the importance of higher education in declarative character; in fact, it is the knowledge base
modern society requires using valid and reliable about the object of research that is used to formalize the
instruments to measure the quality of education [8, 9]. representation of an object (task) and analyze
Reforms in the field of higher education, requirements for the modeling system (solution). The
implementation of innovative technologies to declarative character of domain model does not impose
educational process will cause renewal of the traditional restrictions on the subsequent choice of the model type
strategy of management, its transformation into a new, for the creation of separate components of the system
*
Corresponding author: [email protected]
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
SHS Web of Conferences 50, 01186 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20185001186
CILDIAH-2018
under study and interactions between them. The purpose The alternative description of the considered problem
of this model is to create exact and full representation of domain can be represented as follows:
teaching materials as a system used as a source of - the faculty comprises the departments;
information for the assessment of learning and teaching - the department is composed of the teaching staff;
materials and further design of the database. - the department offers Bachelor’s degree programs
The work of the faculty responsible for methodical designed to prepare students for a variety of careers in
support of educational process has been defined as a the field;
problem domain. - training is provided in accordance with the
"The Curriculum", "The Federal State Educational curriculum;
Standard of Higher Education" and "The provision of - the curriculum is based on the Federal State
learning and teaching materials" were used as source Educational Standard of Higher Education;
documents to generate the subject domain model. - the Course Syllabus is developed in accordance
with the curriculum;
- the Course Syllabus has to be registered by its
2 Logical database model developer – the teacher who provides the course;
For the development of desired software product it is - each course should be provided with the
necessary to consider such concepts as "model" and Instructional Practice Guidelines for the completion of
"domain model". this or that type of tasks.
A model is a representation or copy of an object On the basis of data obtained it is possible to create a
(process, phenomenon) reproducing the features and visual model of problem domain as presented in figure 1.
properties of a genuine object, that are the most essential On the stage of database, logical design the problem
in relation to the outcomes the user is interested in. consists in representing the domain model of problem
A domain model represents the key concepts of the domain in the data model supported by DBMS chosen
problem domain and identifies the relationships among for the system creation. For this research, Microsoft
all of the entities within the scope of the domain. Access has been used to create the database. In order to
understand the system it is necessary to identify domain
entities and their relationships.
Fig. 1. Visual model of problem domain.
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SHS Web of Conferences 50, 01186 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20185001186
CILDIAH-2018
An entity is a system component specifically teaching staff; there are no teachers who are not
intended for modeling an object, process or phenomenon employed by any department;
of the problem domain to be stored. A point of d) each undergraduate degree program can have
distinction should be made between entity types and several curricula, each curriculum belongs to one
entity instances. undergraduate degree program. There are no
An entity type defines a set of entities that have the undergraduate degree programs which do not have any
same attributes. An entity instance is a single item in this curriculum and there are no curricula which do not
set. belong to any undergraduate degree program;
An attribute is a characteristic of an entity object. e) each curriculum is based on at least one federal
The unique identifier of an entity is an attribute or a state educational standard of higher education, each
set of attributes, distinguishing any entity instance from federal state educational standard can regulate several
other instances of the same type. Attributes describe curricula. There are no curricula which are not regulated
each entity and identify entity instances. by federal state educational standard of higher education
Relationship is the graphic representation of and there are no federal state educational standards of
associations established between two entities. Degree of higher education which do not regulate any curriculum;
relationship refers to the number of entity types that f) each curriculum makes the bases for the
participate in the relationship, i.e. relationship between development of several course syllabuses, each syllabus
two entities is called binary. If a relationship connects is based on a particular curriculum. There are no
three entities, it is called ternary or "3-ary." If a curricula which do not have syllabuses and there are no
relationship connects three or more entities (n entities), it syllabuses which are not specified by a curriculum;
is called an "n-ary" relationship. Most relationship sets in g) each teacher can develop several syllabuses, each
a database system are binary. syllabus is developed by one teacher. There are
The rules of drawing an entity-relationship diagram syllabuses which are not registered by a teacher;
for the information system created within this research however there are no teachers who haven't developed
can be described as follows: any syllabus;
a) each faculty can comprise several departments. h) each syllabus should contain several Instructional
Each department can belong to one faculty only. There Practice Guidelines to fulfill this or that type of tasks for
are faculties which do not have any department, but there different kinds of high school classes, each Instructional
are no departments which do not belong to any faculty; Practice Guidelines has to belong to one course only.
b) each department can offer several undergraduate There are no syllabuses which do not have any
degree programs, each program belongs to one Instructional Practice Guidelines, and there shouldn't be
department only. There are departments which do not any Instructional Practice Guidelines which do not
offer undergraduate degree programs, but there are no belong to any syllabus.
undergraduate degree programs which do not belong to In order to study and understand the problem domain
any department; the rules discussed above were implemented. This has
c) each department employs several teachers, but allowed us to identify relationships that exist between
each teacher can be employed by one department only. the entities. Entities, relationships, type of participation
There are no departments which do not employ any and degree of relationship are specified in Table 1.
Table 1. Power of entities – relationship.
Entity 1 Relationship Entity 2
Type of Degree of Type of
Name Name Name
participation relationship participation
Faculty Mandatory comprises 1:n Department Mandatory
Undergraduate degree
Department Optional offers … 1:n Mandatory
program
Department Mandatory employs 1:n Teacher Mandatory
Teacher Mandatory develops 1:n Syllabus Mandatory
Undergraduate degree
Mandatory is based on 1:n Curriculum Mandatory
program
Federal state educational
standard of higher Mandatory regulates 1:n Curriculum Mandatory
education
Curriculum Mandatory regulates 1:n Syllabus Mandatory
Instructional Practice
Syllabus Mandatory contains 1:n Mandatory
Guidelines
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SHS Web of Conferences 50, 01186 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20185001186
CILDIAH-2018
The relational data model of problem domain - Teacher (Teacher_ID, Surname, Name,
represents a set of relationships which allows storing Middle_name, Academic_degree, Academic_status,
data and modeling the relations between them. Position);
With specially formulated set of rules, it is possible - Curriculum (Year_of_Curriculum, Academic_year,
to generate the relation schema of relational data model Date_of_Curriculum_approval, Curriculum_Number);
on the basis of domain model. There is a rule that if the - Federal state educational standard of higher
degree of binary relationship is equal to 1:n and the type education 1 (FSES_ID, Date_of_enforcement);
of participation is mandatory, then it is enough to use - Course syllabus (Syllabus_ID,
two relationships: one for each entity, provided that the Date_of_registration, Name_course, Number_credits,
entity key serves as the primary unique identifier for Series_of_courses, Curriculum_Code, Term,
each entity instance, the key of contiguous entity has to Year_of_study_1, Year_of_study_2, Year_of_study_3,
be added as an attribute to the relationship for n-tuply Year_of_study_4, Year_of_study_5, Competences,
connected entity. Course_paper, Test_paper, Paper,
Preliminary relation schemes are generated on the Laboratory_research_work, Lectures, Seminars,
basis of this rule: Questions_for_test, Tests_For_test,
1) The faculty comprises Departments. Relationship Questions_for_Exam, Cards_for_Exam,
1: [n] – then we use: IPG_selfinstruction, Shedule_selfinstruction,
- Faculty (Abr_name_fakult, …); Provision_teaching_materials,
- Department 1 (Abr_name__dep, Lab_equip_and_spec_rooms, Course_paper_(fact),
Full_name_fakult…). Test_paper_(fact), Paper_(fact),
2) The department offers Undergraduate degree Laboratory_research_work_(fact), Lectures_(fact),
program. Relationship 1: [n]: Seminars_(fact), Questions_for_test_(fact),
- Department 2 (Abr_name__dep, …). Tests_For_test_(fact), Questions_for_Exam_(fact),
- Undergraduate degree program 1 (ID_program, Cards_for_Exam_(fact), IPG_selfinstruction_(fact),
Abr_name__dep, …). Shedule_selfinstruction_(fact),
3) The department is composed of the teaching staff. Provision_teaching_materials_(fact),
Relationship 1: [n]: Lab_equip_and_spec_rooms (fact));
- Department 3 (Abr_name__dep, …); - Instructional Practice Guidelines (ID_Inst_Guid,
- Teacher 1 (ID teacher, Abr_name__dep, …). Name_metod, Author, Year_of_edition, Num_Parts,
4) Training is provided in accordance with the Num_pp, Type_of_classes, Perc_cov_cred_units).
curriculum. Relationship 1: [n]: At a phase of logical design the logical structure of
- Undergraduate degree program 1 (ID_program, …); database corresponding to logical model of problem
- Curriculum 1 (Year_of_Curriculum, ID_program, domain is developed. The logical level of data modeling
…). using Erwin provides several levels of representation:
5) The curriculum makes the bases for the Entity, Relationship, Unique Identifier and other
development of the course syllabus Relationship 1: [n]: Attributes.
- Curriculum 2 (Year_of_Curriculum, …); Logical structure of relational database is generated
- Course syllabus 1 (Syllabus_ID, Name_course, …). at the end of the process of database logical modeling.
6) Federal state educational standard regulates the For this purpose the elements of type, data size,
curriculum. Relationship 1: [n]: uniqueness, type of participation are set for each
- Federal state educational standard of higher attribute.
education 1 (FSES_ID, …); During the physical design process, data gathered
- Curriculum 3 (Year_of_Curriculum, FSES_ID, …). during the logical design phase are converted into a
7) The teacher develops the syllabus. Relationship 1: description of the physical database. The physical model
[n]: depends on a particular DBMS as there no standards for
- Teacher 2 (Teacher_ID, …); database objects.
- Course syllabus 2 (Syllabus_ID, Teacher_ID , …). The Erwin Data Modeler used to create the
8) Course syllabus contains Instructional Practice information system "Teaching materials" provides the
Guidelines. Relationship 1: [n]: processes of forward and inverse modeling that
- Course syllabus 3 (Syllabus_ID, …); considerably reduces the time for detection and
- Instructional Practice Guidelines 1 (ID_Inst_Guid, correction of errors and obtaining approval for a
Syllabus_ID, …). prototype from the customer.
The other attribute relationships are created with the When we use Erwin Data Modeler on the physical
nonkey attributes taking into account that they are single level views are created. These views are the database
valued. Then data model is normalized to Boyce Codd objects in which data are not constantly stored as in a
Normal Form (BCNF). table and the result sets are produced dynamically from
The final relation schema looks as follows: queries. Application of views allows the developer to
- Faculty (Abr_name_fakult, Full_name_fakult); provide each user with the ability to treat data
- Department (Abr_name__dep, Full_name_dep); differently, that solves the problems of usability and data
- Undergraduate degree program 1 (ID_program, security.
Program_Code_of_preparation, Full_name_ program, Among other functions, Erwin provides with the
Abr_name_ program, Study_ form); ability to estimate the approximate size of the database,
*
Corresponding author: [email protected]
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SHS Web of Conferences 50, 01186 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20185001186
CILDIAH-2018
tables, index data and other objects in a certain period of systems, so, one can speak about independent evolution
time after the beginning of operation. of the neighboring agents;
Thus, entities and attributes of the problem domain ˗ the key role of ecosystem interactions in identifying
were identified on the bases of functional specification speed and direction of evolution when evolution of
required for the project development "Teaching software agent is considered as a process of developing
materials" for Bachelor`s degree program “Software software upgrade.
engineering” and University Curricula documents. The So, it is possible to define the concepts which are
data model and the database were created. essential for the generalized digital ecosystem:
environment; interactions; agent; multi-agent
community; evolution, as it is shown in [10] "The
3 Digital ecosystem concept of an object is naturally (one is tempted to say,
Implementation of information technologies for quality inevitably) arises in the process of evolution". As in
control in education has shown that in conditions of educational institution data are less subject to change in
digital economy when all stakeholders of educational time than business processes, the strategy of information
process (students, teachers, parents, potential employers, systems development where the database functions as a
academic authorities, etc.) have the right to control and, cornerstone, was taken as a foundation in this research.
as a rule, exercise it, a digital ecosystem has to become a This will provide the result, which is more stable than,
foundation for the development of IT infrastructure at for example, functional approach in software
the conceptual level. development.
At the moment there is no unambiguous and standard
understanding of this concept, therefore it is possible to 4 Conclusion
define this biometaphor for a software system through
the description of its functions and abilities: There are serious problems with the modern educational
˗ decentralization – the ability of a system to continue system around the world driven by a number of factors,
at the same level of performance even though one or including those connected with changing technical
more components have failed, thus it is important for a environment and the amount of daily processed
system to be fault-tolerant, i.e., have functions and information. Moreover, there are other factors
resources distributed between several elements; influencing the process of education. Both sides are
˗ adaptability – the ability of a software system interested in its computerization; those who are going to
created to improve its parameters under the influence of learn and gain knowledge, and those who teach.
external environment, first of all – stakeholders in the The importance of higher education in modern
sphere of professional education; society requires using valid and reliable instruments to
˗ openness - the ability of a system to interact measure the quality of education.
continuously with the external environment, this Transformation of management system, use of
interaction can take, for example, the form of innovations in education result in gradual modernization
information or material transformations on the border of traditional management strategy which was formed in
with the system, in other words – transferability and the past taking into account new and more flexible
compatibility with the other computer systems; methods and tools capable to adapt to changing external
˗ self-organization – the ability of a system to and internal conditions. The database developed can
spontaneously arrange its elements? in a purposeful serve as an example.
manner, using internal factors, without external specific In the countries of Post-Soviet Space, there is an
influence (change of external conditions can have increased demand for job candidates with at least a
stimulating or overwhelming affect); bachelor’s degree. To satisfy this demand it is necessary
˗ scalability – the ability of a system to increase its to use traditional methods and new technologies to
total output under an increased load when increase the quality of education.
resources(typically hardware) are added; The development of management system for higher
˗ stability – the ability of a system to return to its education institution is a perspective task in ensuring
normal or stable conditions after being externally quality of educational process. Ongoing efforts have to
disturbed. contribute notably to the development in this sphere.
It should be mentioned these abilities are inherent Encouraging development and deployment of innovative
and perennial in many social and technical systems. A technologies in management of higher education
digital software ecosystem should also possess specific institutions is rather important.
abilities: This task represents only the part of the great number
˗ naturalness and discreteness – the evolving software of problems which need to be solved for computerization
agent exists (it is not distinguished for the research of education in transition to mass higher education.
purposes only). It is a system of interacting social,
technical and information objects (e.g., students
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