Ramek: United University

United University is the complete solution of support of educational processes.

United University is the integrated software solution for automation of the state and commercial higher educational institutions.

Description

Implementation of United University provides to educational institution tool kit of planning and acceptance of management decisions, process automation in functional divisions.

As a part of United University five main functional units intended for full automation of management of primary activity of university namely:

• planning and implementation of educational process (Educational Process block), the providing full stroke of automation of administrative functions
• formations of the all-university electronic educational environment (Educational Portal block),
• the head's tools for monitoring and control of activity of university, reportings (Analytical System block).
• planning and management of research activity (Research Part block)
• formation of uniform access point to electronic materials tools of the different systems "Storage of Educational Content"

Technology the structure of the solution RAMEK of United University includes elements of a management system for educational process of Tandem University, the educational portal and the system of distance learning Sakai, the analytical Pentaho BI Suite system, storage of educational content on the ECM Alfresco platform.

Educational Process block

• Control automation by educational process on the basis of credit building block system according to the rules adopted in university, including drawing up the schedule with an opportunity its manual

adjustments.

• Holding a receiving campaign, including accounting of target figures of acceptance on head university and branches, registration of statements from entrants, conducting entrance tests, including remote testing, calculation of lowest passing scores for different specialties and forms of education, preparation of lists of the entrants recommended for transfer, preparation of drafts of orders on transfer, reporting based on a receiving campaign.
• Distribution of pupils by educational groups and flows (both academic, and temporary, for studying of disciplines for choice) with an opportunity to create individual trajectories of training of students.
• Automatic formation of orders (representations) on the contingent of students using a standard set of documents: list and combined orders, statements, agreements, questionnaires, statements.
• Distribution of an academic load on the basis of the created flows (educational groups) of students and educational segments and also on teachers and formations of their educational instructions with a possibility of manual adjustment;
• Accounting of a planned and actual academic load of teachers, departments and university in general;

• Planning of educational process and formation of curricula, their versions and segments, paying special attention to ensuring individual approach to training of students. Accounting of passing by pupils of all types practician (educational, pedagogical, production, etc.)
• Formation of an individual trajectory of training of students;
• Calculation of integrated ratings of pupils on the basis of data on attendance and progress. Integration of a rating system of assessment into actions of intermediate certification
• The analysis of progress of pupils on the basis of integrated ratings by educational programs, departments, faculties, and the University in general;
• Support of processes of a final state assessment of pupils: formation of the state certifying commissions, formation of the schedule of the state certifications, check of passing by pupils of all of the training courses (modules) required for specialty before admission to the state certification, report generation of chairmen of the state certifying commissions;
• Calculation and charge of grants and social payments, using information on progress of students, existence of privileges and other defined benefits, allows to create orders automatically.
• Accounting and control of agreements and payment on them for the students studying at a paid basis in interaction with subsystems of accounting and electronic document management and also accounting of the relevant agreements with the enterprises and the organizations;

Educational Portal block

The educational portal is intended for automation of creation and management of training materials and test tasks, support of modern technologies of the organization of training of students of university as internal, and correspondence forms of studying.

The educational portal is implemented based on the Sakai platform – e-learning of the system focused on support of educational process in educational institutions. A system was developed by consortium of the leading American universities (MIT, Stanford University, University of Michigan, Indiana University). The community of developers is engaged in its improvement.

As a part of the portal functional modules:

• Building tools of electronic content. Depending on technical qualification the staff of university are given different opportunities for creation of training materials and tests – from the built-in modules for creation of standard electronic rates according to the IMS format before creation of complex interactive materials of the SCORM format.
• Training and management of groups of students the Portal allows to provide different forms of representation of tasks to students – tests, panel discussions, issue of tasks in a free form with control of delivery of work as students, the system of notifications about issue and term of delivery of tasks on the personal page of the student and the e-mail.
• Portfolio and the personal environment of training of the student with a possibility of passing of individual and group rates, given about the performed tasks and tests, data on progress, the schedule and so forth.
• Tools of the organization of communication teacher student, including internal e-mail, forums, chats, video conferences.

For storage of content it can be used both the database of the portal, and uniform storage which simplifies search in all training materials, including multimedia.

Mutual integration of the blocks which are its part acts as the basic principle of creation of the complete solution United University. When forming the educational portal specialists of RAMEK company provided integration with control block educational process and an analytical system that allows to speak about the portal, as about the solution for formation of educational space both for students, and for teachers and administration.

Research Part block

The Research Part (RP) block is a component of the integrated RAMEK educational environment United University and includes the following functional units:

• research work – automation of work on formation and accounting of the research projects and also control of their accomplishment;
• postgraduate study and doctoral studies – automation of work on accounting and management of preparation of the scientific personnel of the top skills.

"Research part" is connected with other logically selected modules: management of educational process, management of the contingent of students, personnel and organization structure, accounting, etc. The NICh system can be integrated with them or function independently.

Storage of Educational Content block

The storage of educational content solves problems of systematization and centralized operation of training materials, both text, and multimedia. Such approach allows to exclude duplication of content, to quickly carry out audit of materials and to timely bring irrelevant information out of educational process, to collect exact data on demand of these or those training materials.

In the automatic mode in storage all materials created for needs of educational process arrive and are processed. After processing content becomes available to users both via the web portal of the storage, and through the other systems: educational portal, digital library, management system for educational process, EDMS, etc.). The advanced search implemented in a system allows to combine context search with search in attributes (depending on content type).

The storage also provides instruments of collective work with documents (the distributed creation, discussions, support of version control, management of lifecycle of the document and so forth). A system is implemented on the Alfresco EMC platform.

Analytical System block

An analytical system is intended for collecting, processing, storage and data analysis on all divisions of university, for providing the business analysis to other subsystems of functionality, including statistical and also visualization tools of the analyzed information: tables, charts and diagrams.

Depending on requirements of administration of educational institution in an analytical subsystem data both from the United University components, and from systems which are available in university can be collected (financial, the ACS, electronic dean's office and so forth)

As analytical indicators can be used:

• indicators of educational activity, including on training, entrants, progress, the ratings of students and teachers;
• indicators of scientific and innovation activity;
• indicators of the providing activity: financial activities, purchases, document flow, functioning of a campus);
• indicators of management (in cuts on administration, schools, scientific research);
• indicators of demand of graduates employers and a feedback from them;
• indicators of monitoring and the place of university in different ratings.