Flexible Enrollment Information System Eres 2: A Tool For Managing Teaching Activities

Abstract NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Session 2560 Flexible Enrollment Information System ERES 2: A Tool for Managing Teaching Activities* Krzysztof Antoszkiewicz, Eugeniusz Toczy}owski, Tomasz Traczyk Warsaw University of Technology Introduction The increasing need for smooth management of all academic and administrative activities, and require- ments for more efficient utilization of limited academic resources (academic staff, space, laboratory equip- ment and financial resources) imply increased needs for more cost-effective organization and better resource management in universities. The managerial and organizational issues are more complex for those universities which have introduced the modular system of studies, or so called Flexible Indiuidua~ Enrolbnent System (FIES) for students. The Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology is the first academic institution in Poland to have introduced FIES, in 1990. FIES allows all students to study individually. It gives substantial flexibility of studies, where students can select their own menu of lectures, as well as the individual workloads and timetables. They also may select some variants of similar or equivalent lectures. Credit points are attached to courses, and students individually select courses and collect the required credits by the end of each phase of study. The introduction of FIES creates many managerial problems at the university. An appropriate infor- mation system for computer-assisted enrollment and computer-aided management of academic activities is not only an important help, but is a must in order to achieve performance and proper organization of all university activities. A crucial feature of many universities is that they have to operate at a relatively low budget. It is hence important to develop and implement an information system that will provide proper organization, flexible management of university activities and efficient utilization of all university resources at low cost. In this paper we present our experience with the development of a second generation of a novel, cost-effective information system ERES 2 for flexible individual enrollment and computer-aided adminis- tration and management of a faculty. Special care is devoted to the design and organizational issues. Organization of the modular system In a flexible studying system substantial freedom must be given to students to allow them to select lectures, and to provide individual enrollment and timetabling. In each semester students select their own individual sets of lectures from those offered, assuring only that appropriate prerequisites are followed. Students may also select variants of similar or equivalent lectures offered by different academic staff from various departments. Thus, students may design individual timetables in each semester. An enhancement of flexibility of the curriculum means that programme leading to a particular degree, offered to students, allow the students many options within their areas of interest. A course offer must “Partially supported by KBN grant S505 03804 ~c,,,, ~’tiH; 1996 ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings ‘J#H&