In 2018, ITMO University’s curriculum was expanded with new subjects, which provide Bachelor’s, Specialist’s, and Master’s students with a fundamental background on the basis of which they study the subjects in their specialization. Constituting the so-called “core set”, these disciplines aim to help students develop soft skills, digital and entrepreneurial culture, as well as logical and analytical thinking: everything that is necessary for living and working in the era of digital economy. Once these skills are acquired, students get to work on their hard skills.
The core set of disciplines includes:
(You can follow the links in order to find out what those modules are all about.)
Even though these educational modules have been functioning for two years, we still need to constantly edit and develop them in order to provide students with the best possible education. What is more valuable for improvement than feedback from students who take these courses? That’s exactly why the Center for Educational Management and Quality Assurance arranges surveys for each discipline on a regular basis: in the beginning and at the end of a semester.
In our emails about the assessment, we always emphasize that feedback is of high value to us because that’s the way students can directly influence the quality of their education. Apart from their opinions in general, we also evaluate how motivated and satisfied students are, as well as whether they find provided materials sufficient for passing their exams, how hard their exams are, and so on.
We often hear that all these surveys don’t actually have any impact but in reality, they do. The university considers the opinion of students and uses it in order to keep improving the programs.
Survey results are first processed and analyzed by the Center for Educational Management and Quality Assurance, and then submitted to the heads of the core-set modules, administration, and lecturers. In this way, comprehensive work on improving the disciplines is being done.
In order to present the results of this work, we have created an infographic that covers the changes which already took place or are planned to be implemented soon in the core-set modules. It became possible thanks to the students who expressed their opinions and suggestions. During the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 academic years we received 8,871 forms filled out by Bachelor’s and Master’s students. The infographics are available on the page of the Center for Educational Management and Quality Assurance (in Russian).
We hope that seeing the impact of your feedback will make you feel heard and motivate you to take current surveys and let us know what else you would change. This applies not only to the core set of disciplines, but all of them.
For the first time ever, a large-scale survey covering all the disciplines is now taking place. Disciplines are evaluated based on these criteria:
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how well the curriculum was organized,
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how the lecturer communicated with students,
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how efficient this communication was,
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how satisfied the students were with it.
You can find more information about this survey in our article.
The surveys are only one of the tools for receiving feedback from students that allow us to understand how the learning process goes for you. However, it’s crucial that students actively take part in them, as it allows us to improve the quality of education.
If you have any suggestions concerning the quality of education, you can share them with the Center for Educational Management and Quality Assurance via edu.quality@itmo.ru or this form (in Russian).
Center for Educational Management and Quality Assurance
