The Azerbaijan National Education Management and eLearning project
The Ministry of Education in Azerbaijan aims at offering students equal access to education and technology and to create more possibilities for a safer future, through education. To accomplish its mission, the Ministry of Education has chosen for implementing a successful educational project, an international consortium lead by ULTRA and composed of SIVECO Romania, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Intel. The Azerbaijan national education management and eLearning project’s goal was to contribute to the development and modernization of the Azeri education system by introducing and enhancing the use of IT&C:
- In the process of school administration/management
- In the teaching/learning in the pre-university education
Secondary objectives:
- Improvement of policy making capacity of local, regional and central education authorities/agencies.
- Offering tools for supporting decision-making, evaluation, planning, foresight and prognosis, monitoring and control at all levels of beneficiaries.
- Supporting school managers and school administration.
- Improvement of the learning process through high quality interactive lessons.
- Assist local teachers by providing dedicated training and technical support in Azeri language.
Project’s beneficiaries:
As a strategic program for improving the Azeri education system, the project has a positive impact on different levels of users and it addresses the entire society focusing on the development of the national economy. The main beneficiaries are students, teachers, administrative personnel and decision makers within ministry of education. The ministry of education aims at offering maximum advantages for each target group, according to their specific needs.
Students benefit of the complex AeL eLearning solution which includes interactive digital content, meant to increase the motivation for learning and improve students’ scholar results. As an outcome, students transform obligation in motivation, develop new skills, and become more engaged in the learning process and more self confident about their future.
Software components of the project (provided by SIVECO Romania)
AeL eLearning Platform
- A complete, integrated learning management system (LMS) and learning content management system (LCMS) solution.
- Universal standards- based
- Modular and extendable architecture:
- Virtual classroom -the system is optimized for synchronous learning
- Virtual library – the system has an electronic library, with the main purpose of storing and managing all educational content
- Testing and evaluation - the system offers support for electronic testing as well as grading assistance
AeL School Manager (ASM)
Offers support for the management of the school, including:Management of the school (by study levels, schools, components, etc.)
Management of classrooms / virtual learning spaces
Management of results:
- Grades, attendance records, results, activity
- Extra-curricular activities, contests and awards
- Organizational chart: teachers, pupils, class masters and auxiliary personnel
- Information on pupils and teachers: personal information, qualifications, current and past activity
- Scheduling - schedule rules and generation, detailed schedule for each instructor/pupil.
National education database (NED)
Consolidated data in a single database:- The database is the common data source for all other applications
- The data collected covers all aspects of the education process
- The collecting interface provides checks and restrictions to eliminate common errors
- All auxiliary applications refer the same data dictionaries
- All the reports are extracted from the same database
- Automatic data transfer to central database > less paperwork
School map application
- Analytical, synthetic and statistical data about the Azeri schools
- Public and secured reporting system for the Azeri NED
- With web based interface for statistical information on the educational system:
- At national level
- At regional level
- At school level
- Indicators analysis such as: snapshot analysis; time series analysis; comparative (between similar indicators) analysis.
- Forecasting for education system evolution
- Assistance in decision making process
- Pupils/teachers ratio
- Pupils/computers ratio
- Qualified teachers ratio
- Business requirements identification and definition
- Solution customization analysis and design
- Custom software development (using industry standard platforms and technologies); delivery of both software and complete user documentation
- Complete implementation services: software installation, users training, roll-out assistance, technical support
- Quality assurance services throughout the entire project period
- Project management services throughout the entire project period: planning, reports
- Start-up technical assistance services
- Maintenance services
For the Azerbaijan National Education Management and eLearning project to have a positive impact at a national level, cutting-edge technology was chosen to be implemented. The way the technology was deployed was one of the success factors of the project. The consortiums that lead the project provided the Ministry of Education with an integrated eLearning solution, meant to improve the school administration/management process and also the teaching/learning process in the Pre-university education. In addition to the hardware and software installation, the implementation of the program implied the training of the Azeri teaching staff in using AeL components, as well as assuring the technical support and transmission of educational materials. The project was designed as a complete nationwide solution, meant to respond the Azeri education system’s needs, for accomplishing a long-term educational reform. This implies offering free and equal access to ICT tools to all Azeri students and teachers, continuous development training for teachers and administrative personnel, support in installing and maintaining the IT infrastructure, evaluation methodology for decision-makers within the Ministry.
