Software in a technical college: view of a student, teacher and IT student

We will consider in this article the availability of software in a technical university. It is about software as a subject of study.

Not so long ago, I myself was a student at St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI" , and now I work in an IT company and teach in my own university. At the same time, my view on the educational process in general and on the problem of completing training classes with software in particular has changed. Today I will try to consider it from three sides: from the point of view of a student, teacher and software manufacturer.

Some statistics

According to the result of the survey conducted by habrazhitel, only one-fourth said with confidence that there was no shortage of software in his university, and only one-third believed that all software used was licensed.
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Who needs licensed software in the university?

On the network, I came across a press release telling about the results of the actions held for the student audience, in which students, teachers and employees of universities were offered to purchase well-known software products at a discount.

As a result:

• The greatest number of orders accounted for teachers.
• Students' activity in terms of purchasing licensed software increased as they moved from junior to senior.
• Graduate students and part-time students were interested in licensed programs less than students in grades 1-5 full-time.
• Students responded not only and not so much to the call to purchase licensed software, but to the size of the proposed discount.

When we were students ...

For 5.5 years of my studies in the specialty "Information Systems and Technologies", I and my fellow students did not receive from the university and did not independently acquire a single licensed software product needed for study. And there were a lot of them, offhand: BPwin, ARIS, MathCAD, MatLab, Compass-3D, MS Project, MS Visio. In fact, there were many more programs. Nobody gave us licenses for these products, and we had to do the tasks and coursework in them. We, like any students of technical universities, of course, wanted to study on actual and popular products that will be useful in future work, and we were interested in the legality of purchasing these products last.

So, in our opinion, a student:

• wants to learn using the latest software;
• needs a wide range of often expensive software;
• It does not have the material ability to buy it yourself.

What does a teacher need?

Our teaching group reads various IT disciplines:

• information systems design (UML);
• requirements collection (SRS);
• designing and prototyping user interfaces;
• corporate information systems (CIS), including corporate content management systems (ECM);
• information systems administration (ITIL / ITSM);
• IT project management (PMBoK);
• other.

For many of these disciplines, software is not freely available. So, to prepare the ECM curriculum, I had to look for contact directly with the vendor. They became the market leader in this field EMC Documentum. Our cooperation was not limited to licensing, teachers were trained and training materials were provided.

In most cases, the teacher, like the student, does not have the material ability to purchase the necessary software. But the teacher has the opportunity to seek help from the university.

How to get the right software: the classic way

If you could not agree with the vendor will have to buy software. Consider the process of acquiring software on the example of the department of automation and management processes of our university.

Step 1. The initiators of the purchase one way or another are the teachers. They make a list of software they need to teach students and pass it on to the head of the department.
Step 2. The head of the department collects applications from all teachers for a certain period, after which it forms a general list of software required by the department and writes a statement to the dean's office.
Step 3. The dean's office collects applications from all departments for a certain period, after which it forms a general list of software required by the faculty. Then the dean's office compiles and sends the application to the person responsible for purchasing software in the university.
Step 4. The person or persons responsible for the purchase of software in the university, carry out a number of operations for the direct purchase of software. Software enters the warehouse.
Step 5. In accordance with the statements, the software is distributed first among faculties, then into departments. Software falls on the balance of the department.

What are the disadvantages of this scheme:

• Budget constraint. Not all software needed by the teacher will be purchased. Usually in the budget of the university laid a certain amount of software, and the university can not exceed it. Accordingly, the "extra" products have to give up.
• Duration Delays take place at almost every step: it takes a lot of time to collect applications, the procurement process itself, the distribution of purchased software. As a result, the entire cycle sometimes takes at least six months.

If the classic method did not work

If for any reason the required software cannot be obtained using the method described above (the university refused, the teacher cannot wait), then the following options remain:

• Do not use software at all. Giving only a theory.
• Use unlicensed software.
• Find and use alternative free software.
• Use time-limited (trial) versions of products.

Each option has its limitations and disadvantages. So how do you get what you want?

"Ideal" academic program

Our vision:

• Developed by the software manufacturer in conjunction with the university. Vendor knows the features of his product, the university knows how to present them to students.
• Software licenses are free or at a significant discount.
• The software is full-featured, “fresh”, not limited in duration.
• Availability of technical support.
• The provision or assistance in the creation of educational materials.
• The presence of a training and production site for practical training and further work on the subject profile.
• The possibility of teaching and research activities: the provision of scientific leaders, material and technical base for the conduct of R & D, bachelor, master and postgraduate studies.

Academic program in terms of software vendor

As an employee of an IT company, I will say that the academic program is unprofitable for us until the trained students become specialists and recommend our software to their companies. It is clear that talking about super profits in the short term is not necessary.

The provision of technical support, assistance in the preparation of educational materials, work with students require additional human and material resources.

Thus, the software manufacturer incurs considerable expenses in the development and support of the academic program. For us, this is an investment in the future.

Our academic experience

In the academic program of the project GUI Machine we tried to realize our vision of the ideal. This program includes the provision of GUI Machine licenses to both educational institutions and individuals (students, teachers, graduate students, doctoral students, bachelors, masters). We have equipped the product training classes of several Russian universities:

• SPbSPU
• VPI
• SKGMI (GTU)
• Saint-Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI"

Negotiations are ongoing with a number of technical and humanitarian universities.

Who if not us?

In our experience, the main drivers in the modernization of the educational process are teachers and students, but not the leadership of universities. We recommend colleagues to be more active, independently find the curriculum of interest and seek their implementation in the educational process.

I would like to hear the opinion of representatives of other universities.

PS Article prepared jointly with RGaifutdinov