Individual Project

The main goal of the course is for student to define, develop and defend their own OE project. Projects may be selected from a variety of different contexts, such as economic development, human rights, teaching and learning, access to education. Project should have an interdisciplinary character and should focus on a topic of concrete relevance for a selected OE organization, NGO, company, government, or educational institution. This may include OE strategy development, assessment or deployment, OE business and organisational aspects, creation of a course. Students will have the opportunity to participate in the existing project of the selected mentors. Research work will be performed under the supervision of the selected mentor (regular meetings) and a specialist from the company, if applicable for a given research project. Project topic will be defined in such a way, that students can later upgrade and broaden it in the frame of their master thesis. This will allow students to solve more complex problems related to their project. Knowledge and skills obtained in this course will help student in the master thesis preparation. Additionally, it can also serve as a relevant reference in their further professional career.

Students will acquire the following competences:

-Select projects based on viability for a given timeframe: short, medium, or long-term;
-Develop specific expertise in OE areas relevant for concrete societal, organisational, governmental or business needs;
-Develop skills specific to selected OE area as a result of project participation, such as publishing, economic development, technology, teaching and learning;
-Know the complete process and procedures to implement and deploy OE and OL at chosen level, i.e. international, national or organisational;
-Ability to explore novel methods and concepts and to be creative in developing strategies, models and/or contents;
-Master management of OE projects,
-Master methodologies of the research work;
-Ability to solve real problems by using research approaches;
-Ability to present their project in a written form and orally, and to discuss about the project and OE topics with international audience.

Students should have knowledge from the following Year 1 courses: Introduction to Open Education, Technologies for Open Education, Effective Didactical Practices in Open Education. They should be ready to implement their own OL course that will follow the needs of a real user. They should be opened to new approaches and creative design of OE solutions.

• Selection of the topic based on appropriate organisational attributes, project viability, and social impact
• Literature search and search for other sources of information
• Individual research work under mentor’s supervision
• Problem definition
• Research and development work needed to solve the defined problem
• Implementation of a particular part of OE or OL
• Delivering a written report about the project
• Oral presentation of the project

Knowledge and skills:

• Students gain knowledge about complete design and implementation of OE and OL by using research work and innovative ideas as well.

• They understand the overall process of the learning system transformation towards flexible and open education. They are able to devise policies and/or rules as well as the internal OL system of an organisation linked to HRM.

• They are capable of running and managing OE and OL as well as developing complete strategies of OE and OL.

• Students gain the ability to solve real problems by a scientific approach. They are also able to critically assess their work, present it in a written form and orally, and discuss about it with international audience.

Readings will be specified by mentors and will depend on the project topic.

• Interim progress evaluation (20%) • Project report (50%) • Oral presentation and discussion (30%)

Prof. Suzana Loshkovska, Ph.D. received the bachelor and master degrees in computer science and automation from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Skopje, in 1988 and 1992, respectively, and the Ph.D. from the Technical University of Wien, Wien, Austria in 1995. She is a full professor of Computer Science and the head of the Department of Software Engineering at the Faculty of Computer Science Engineering, “Ss. Cyril and Methodius” University in Skopje. Her research interests include programming, visualization, human-computer interaction, virtual reality, medical imaging, and technologically enhanced learning. Suzana Loshkovska has over 25 years of experience in teaching, supervising and guidance of undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of programming, medical informatics, content-based image retrieval, visualization and human-computer interaction. Also, she has over 10 years of experience in developing and ensuring quality assurance of study programs for higher education institutions. She entered the Open Education for a Better World program as a mentor from the very beginning, and acts as a mentor in international teams.

Selected bibliography:

1. Dimitrovski, Ivica & Spasev, Vlatko & Loskovska, Suzana & Kitanovski, Ivan. (2024). U-Net Ensemble for Enhanced Semantic Segmentation in Remote Sensing Imagery. Remote Sensing. 16. 2077. 10.3390/rs16122077.
2. Trojachanec, D., Kitanovski, D., Dimitrovski, I., Loshkovska, S., (2023). A Multi-Modality Approach to Medical Case Retrieval for Alzheimer's Disease. In 16th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 5: HEALTHINF, Proceedings. ISBN 978-989-758-631-6, ISSN 2184-4305, (pp. 554-561). DOI: 10.5220/0011939800003414.
3. Dineva, K.T., Kitanovski, I., Dimitrovski, I., Loshkovska, S. and Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (2022). Combining Static and Dynamic Features to Improve Longitudinal Image Retrieval for Alzheimer’s Disease. In ICT Innovations 2022. Reshaping the Future Towards a New Normal: 14th International Conference, ICT Innovations 2022, Skopje, Macedonia, September 29–October 1, 2022, Proceedings (pp. 107-120). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
4. Loshkovska, S. (2022) Virtual and Augmented Reality in Education, International Conference on New Approaches (ICNAE’22)/2022, pp. 86-90
5. Trojachanec, D., Kitanovski, D., Dimitrovski, I., Loshkovska, S., (2022). Missing Data in Longitudinal Image Retrieval for Alzheimer’s Disease. In 19th International Conference for Informatics and Information Technology, Proceedings (pp.69-74). 2022.
6. Ademi, N. and Loshkovska, S., (2020) Clustering Learners in a Learning Management System to Provide Adaptivity, ICT Innovations 2020, web-Proceedings (https://proceedings.ictinnovations.org/2020/paper/529/clustering-learners-in-a-learning-management-system-to-provide-adaptivity), pp. 82-95
7. Ademi, N., Loshkovska, S., (2020) Weekly Analysis of Moodle Log Data in RStudio for Future Use in Prediction, 17th International Conference on Informatics and Information Technologies - CIIT 2020, 8-May-2020, Mavrovo, North Macedonia.
8. Ademi, N., Loshkovska, S., Chorbev, I., (2020) User Modeling Approaches in Adaptive Learning Systems, International Journal of Technical and Natural Sciences, Skopje, North Macedonia, 2020, Vol.1(2), [Available at: http://ijtns.ibu.edu.mk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IBU-IJTNS_Vol-1_Issue-2.pdf]
9. Ademi N., Loshkovska S. (2019) Exploratory Analysis of Student Activities and Success Based on Moodle Log Data, CiiT - 16th International Conference on Informatics and Information Technologies, Mavrovo, Macedonia, May 10-12, 2019.
10. Ademi N., Loshkovska S., Kalajdziski S. (2019) Prediction of Student Success Through Analysis of Moodle Logs: Case Study. In: Gievska S., Madjarov G. (eds) ICT Innovations 2019. Big Data Processing and Mining. ICT Innovations 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1110. Springer, Cham
11. Ademi, N., Loshkovska, S. (2019). Early Detection of Dropouts in E-Learning Systems. Academic Perspective Procedia, 2 (3), 1008-1015. DOI: 10.33793/acperpro.02.03.112
12. Ademi, N., Loshkovska, S., (2019) User Data In Adaptive Learning Systems, Turkish Studies Information Technologies and Applied Sciences, Volume 14 Issue 4, 2019, p. 507-518.
13. Ademi, N., Loshkovska, S., Chorbev, I., (2019) Reinforcing motivation and engagement by behavioral design in learning systems, International Open & Distance Learning Conference, IODL 2019, 14-16 November 2019, Eskisehir, Turkey, p. 237-244.

Projects
Researcher, Tools and Techniques for Improving and Supporting Begginers Programming Learning (contination of the project), National project funded by FCSE, 2016-2017

Researcher, Tools and Techniques for Improving and Supporting Begginers Programming Learning (contination of the project), National project funded by FCSE, 2015-2016

Researcher, CODE – advanced web-based learning environment for learing programming (contination of the project),, National project funded by FCSE, 2014-2015

Researcher, CODE – advanced web-based learning environment for learing programming, National project funded by FCSE, 2013-2014

Macedonian team coordinator, "Online Presence for Learning“,SEE_ERA.NET Plus, 2010-2012

Macedonian team coordinator „Enhancing the quality of distance learning at Western Balkan higher education institutions“,511126-TEMPUS-1-2010-1-RS-TEMPUS-SMGR, 2010-2013

Independent expert, "M.Sc. Cirriculum in Е-learning” , Tempus ЈЕP - 41016 – 2006, 2006-2009