CTE Workshop Proceedings, 2014, Vol. 2: CTE-2013 58 Really modern issues for masters from World German Cloud University Nadia Ivanivna Shiyan Poltava National V. G. Korolenko Pedagogical University, 2, Ostrogradski Street, Poltava, 36003, Ukraine snada@rambler.ru Rainer Unland, Martin Gröger, Dietrich Brandt, Torsten Brinda, Vardan Surenovich Mkrttchian HHH University, P.O. Box 759, Lane Cove, Sydney, 1595, NSW, Australia hhhuniversity@hotmail.com Abstract. The study aims to identify opportunities for masters who gives World German Cloud University. The article describes the entire process of project implementation on the example of one popular specialty Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM). Our goal is to create and foster relationships between students of different countries and support them in their personal and professional development. Our network consists of 68 local groups in 26 countries, currently to 50,000 students. Project open wishing to join can contact a representative World German Cloud University in Ukraine – Professor Nadia Shiyan. Keywords: masters; Cloud University; global market. Н. И. Шиян*, Р. Унланд҂, М. Грогер, Д. Брандт҂, Т. Бринда҂, В. С. Мкртчян҂. Реальные современные вызовы для магистров от Всемирного немецкого облачного университета Аннотация. Целью исследования является выявление возможностей для магистров, которые дает Всемирный немецкий облачный университет. Описан весь процесс реализации проекта на примере одной востребованной специальности «Промышленная инженерия и менеджмент». Наша цель заключается в создании и способствовании отношений между студентами различных стран мира и оказание им поддержки в их личностном и профессиональном развитии. Наша сеть состоит из 68 локальных групп в 26 странах и достигла в настоящее время 50000 студентов. Проект открытый, желающие присоединиться могут обратиться к представителю World German Cloud University на Украине – профессору Надежде Ивановне Шиян. Ключевые слова: магистры; Облачный университет; всемирный рынок труда. Организация: Полтавский национальный педагогический университет имени В. Г. Короленко, ул. Остроградского, 2, г. Полтава, 36003, Украина*; mailto:snada@rambler.ru Хмаро орієнтоване навчальне середовище 59 Университет управления и информационно-коммуникационных технологий – HHH University, аб. ящик 759, Лейн Ков, 1595, Сидней, Новый Южный Уэльс, Австралия҂. E-mail: snada@rambler.ru*, hhhuniversity@hotmail.com҂. Education is one of the most important issues in today's world. We are living in knowledge driven societies. Students learn everything from primary school all through university. They always want to improve themselves at each stage of this education process. When they finish their Bachelor education in university, they start to search for new improvements. Master programs help them, and they offer specializing in one certain area. These Master programs offer new possibilities, thus students want to be participants of them and make their own future better. Society needs such brilliant minds in order to develop further. Today, however, we can see many students from all over the world quitting their studies after their Bachelor. Many of them may be called brilliant, and they would want to continue to develop themselves further. But they start working instead of continuing their Master program. There is a full scale of reasons and excuses, including the prices of the programs, and the feeling of being bored by university studies. There is also the fact of not being able to earn any money during the university years. Many students from different countries or regions have difficulties to achieve the quality of education they would need today in industry internationally – particularly if we are looking at studying Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM). Furthermore there are these observations that our educational systems are largely based on theoretical learning while companies require students with experience and knowledge on how to cope with the real work environment. Obviously there is this difference between what we are learning and what companies want. It seems that the strongest purposes of Higher Education Institutions are research and education instead of fulfilling actual needs of specific competences in industry. In academia there is a tendency to teach only those competences which they are equipped to teach; the university appears as a comfort zone and it does not want to move outside that comfort zone in order to offer new and innovative programs. Thus there is this gap between the educational programs currently being offered and the requirements of enterprises. After our exams, the companies are suddenly responsible for our further education and development without being really prepared for it. This gap needs to be narrowed or eliminated. One step in this direction can be achieved by providing a better match between needs of industry and the competences offered by education through establishing a more continuous dialogue between industry and university concerning these requirements. As a first step, all programs should include additional subject categories in order to satisfy industry needs, mailto:snada@rambler.ru mailto:hhhuniversity@hotmail.com CTE Workshop Proceedings, 2014, Vol. 2: CTE-2013 60 such as communication, teamwork, mentoring, leadership, finance and training. Education is not only about knowledge, but also about attitudes and values; it also means preparing for professional skills. In our era of globalization, technology does not know what national borders actually are. The walls protecting our systems of education might also gradually be falling. At least, they are definitely shaken up at this moment. Nowadays we are witnesses of competition and globalization of markets which have increased tremendously. Thus companies will inevitably focus on obtaining students who master such skills and competencies which will improve the companies’ position in the global markets. Therefore we need fundamental changes within the educational systems which will certainly not happen overnight. These are the facts which we would like to change by providing a new experience-based Study Program for students of IEM. The program would be free of charge. The program would include, firstly, an online education system which would develop further the students ‘theoretical knowledge. We have realized that about all knowledge in today‘s Master programs can be gained by using the internet. It is all there in the Cloud University. There is, secondly, the proposal to connect the students with companies worldwide: by working on company projects and by solving their cases, the students can gain practical experiences and they could earn some money at the same time. There would be international groups working on these case studies or a project which means not only team work and international relations but new experiences in communication, cooperation and leadership for all students. Thus we develop our skills to a much higher level. We need to be competitive – we need to be better than previous generations of students in order to cope with today’s and tomorrow’s challenges. We want to be seen as open-minded, and fast in learning and in gaining new experiences. In this way of developing and learning, we as students will get the job that we are looking for, and companies will also appreciate us as highly educated candidates of all kinds. The main pattern of this new program will be that it is fully based on the Internet – the Cloud University. We suggest developing this new program in a way which may be considered equivalent or comparable to the Master program of today. It would, however, not necessarily lead to some examinations or to the formal Master degree awarded by some university. The knowledge and experiences which may be gained during this new Study Program may be more important than any formal degree. Industrial companies are also not really searching that much for formal Master degrees but more for skills and knowledge and for previous experiences related to their work. Therefore the new program may rather lead to a new kind of Certificate which may be characterized as a summary of the different educational experiences of the students during their paths through this new Study Program. The program will comprise a theoretical part based on Хмаро орієнтоване навчальне середовище 61 acquiring knowledge through the Internet, and there would be a practical part which would be implemented through company projects. The theoretical part of this new program will be based on a new website portal. Thus first of all, we will create this webpage similar to the existing HHH University portal. All people in World would have access to our website because we will link our new webpage with this HHH University portal. Students can reach every kind of information online whatever they want to learn within this innovative program. Thus the students can obtain all theoretical knowledge through this website. It would develop into a kind of Cloud University. There would not be any complex buildings needed such as a university campus or classrooms. Even if students don't have any money, they can apply for this program. They need only to click and then they can reach all kinds of educational information for free. We would link up to these portal videos of lectures and laboratories, educational texts and articles which are already available on the web. It will be done in a way that students can access them easily. One further goal is to make agreements with well-known university instructors. According to these agreements, we can put their lectures onto this portal as online courses. We will also utilize other useful education-based webpage links as well. Many web- based courses have already been linked up into university-equivalent course sequences. They are offered openly by means of special portals run and operated by established teams of researchers. The new cloud portal would be linked to such existing portals with the emphasis on IEM. This new portal would, thus, develop into a “Meta-Portal” for IEM students who are looking for further learning options after their graduation. Therefore the cloud portal may even open up a viable strategy toward life-long learning for IEM, the practical part of our new program will be based on projects with industry because in our program, we will mainly have students like ourselves: the HHH University-based students of IEM. Thus we will start the program with such engineering and management projects. Students who apply for our program will have to choose their specific professional orientation like in other Master programs of today. These students, however, will come from very different educational, social and national background. Thus they may choose their specific field of research and practical experience according to their previous experiences and achievements. In this way they determine their personal study areas in this program. According to their choices, they can apply to companies in order to work together on certain projects. Many successful companies are looking for fresh ideas. There are already many web-based market-place portals for students around which are attached to universities and allow students and companies to exchange information and options for student project work and internship.