IFIP Provides Funds to Help Developing Countries Participate in IFIP

Recognizing that a lack of funds prevents many developing countries (DCs) from participating in IFIP, Mr. Plamen Nedkov (BG), Executive Director of IFIP, devised a scheme to help alleviate this problem for IFIP Member societies in DCs. The plan involves an annual subsidy of 1000 Swiss francs (CHF) that the Member can use to support attendance at IFIP events, to support attendance of Technical Committee members at TC meetings, or to purchase IFIP books. Since there are 20 IFIP Full Members from DCs, this plan will cost no more than 20 000 CHF annually. The proposal was embraced by the March Council in India and will be implemented immediately on a three-year trial basis.

The 1000 CHF sums will be in the form of "matching grants"; i.e., IFIP will pay for half of the DC Member's acceptable expenses, up to the 1000 CHF limit. The means of administration are described in the following excerpts from the DC Support Plan:

Developing Countries Support Plan

IFIP wishes to encourage a greater involvement in its work by persons from DCs that are Full Members of IFIP. Some DCs are financially unable to send their national representatives to Technical Committee (TC) meetings and often find it difficult to support even one delegate per year at an IFIP conference. In order to encourage societies in DCs (that are Full Members of IFIP) to support their own persons, the Developing Countries Support Committee will offer a "matching grant" up to a maximum figure of 1000 CHF for each of the next three years. Allowable expenditures will be:

1. Attendance at events organised by IFIP only. This would encourage the Member society in an IFIP DC to offer assistance to persons able to attend IFIP events
2. Purchase of IFIP publications. This would enable Societies in IFIP DCs to purchase IFIP conference proceedings (currently at a 30% discount), IFIP publications and IFIP journal subscriptions. As a further opportunity, conference organisers are often pleased to sell additional copies of proceedings at the "bulk copy" purchase price that they obtain from the IFIP publisher.
3. Attendance of the national representative at TC meetings. Much of the work of IFIP is through its Working Groups, which are overseen by the twelve TCs. Hence attendance by the DCs' national representatives at TC meetings is to be encouraged. This will enable the DCs to contribute to IFIP planning.

Not allowable will be:

1. Any support for the IFIP General Assembly representative
2. Any support for events organised with other organisations
3. Any support for non-IFIP events.

IFIP/UNESCO Informatics Curriculum Framework 2000

by Prof. Fred Mulder (NL)* and Drs. Tom van Weert (NL)**

Early in 1998, UNESCO requested IFIP to "Elaborate a complete modular framework for training in informatics, covering the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and courses to be provided." Responsibility for the project was assigned to the IFIP Technical Committee on Education (TC3), which has undertaken to develop the framework, taking into account the needs and capabilities of developing countries. It will cover university educational programmes (from undergraduate to postgraduate) as well as training programmes and courses to be provided concerning applications in the specific fields of responsibility of UNESCO: education, science, culture and mass communication. TC3 will identify, in cooperation with other IFIP TCs, experts from all regions of the world, representing the major fields of informatics, to give input to the programme. By the end of 1999, the complete framework will be made accessible to the world's informatics education community through the UNESCO Web site and regional mirror sites, in particular in Africa.

Working Document

The IFIP Working Group on Higher Education (WG3.2) has started work on the project. A first working document has been produced by the authors of this article and was submitted to UNESCO in December 1998 and presented to the March IFIP Council meeting in India. This document is also serving as the input for a recently started common effort of WG3.2 and American computer societies (ACM, IEEE-CS, AITP, and others) under the project name "Informatics/computing curriculum patterns for the future." The working document presents the basic assumptions and underlying principles for what will be called the IFIP/UNESCO Informatics Curriculum Framework 2000 (abbreviated ICF-2000). It includes a global specification of ICF-2000 in terms of identified categories of professionals, graduate profiles, curriculum components, and implementation factors and strategies. Note that we use the term "informatics" (or "I") as an umbrella label, referring to a diverse, yet related, family of disciplines or domains.

Context and Relevant Trends

During the 1990s, the field of informatics has shown an ongoing development, extension and linkage with other knowledge domains. In parallel, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in demand for university education in informatics and informatics-related topics from a broad and diverse population. At the very same time that informatics education is emerging as an increasingly important part of core education for more and more students, we find a trend towards fragmentation within the informatics field itself. This creates a need for a common vision of the core concepts in informatics education.

The development of a common vision was the focus of an August 1997 international working conference organised by WG3.2, which brought together experts with different backgrounds from around the world¹. The IFIP/UNESCO project builds heavily on the state-of-the-art thoughts developed at this conference and its follow-up activities. Of course, there is also the rich context of earlier cooperative activities to formulate shared curricular goals for (parts of) the informatics field.

Four Entities

The term "curriculum framework" in ICF-2000 refers to more than just a set of modules. It comprises the following entities:

• Categories of professionals The identification of which categories of informatics (I) professionals are actually needed, in the perspective of current informatics and technological development, is instrumental as a start of any I-curriculum implementation.
• Graduate profiles Once the categories of I professionals have been selected, the corresponding I-graduate profiles can be globally specified to form the basis for an effective and efficient I-curriculum design that takes account of its variety.
• Curriculum components A well-chosen set of I-curriculum components allows one to take advantage of a maximum of commonality among the diverse educational I programmes leading to the graduate profiles; this set is complemented with specialisation I tracks. Each component describes a coherent area of content in terms of both knowledge and skills to be acquired.
• Implementation factors and strategies A series of implementation factors can be used to decide on strategies for full (or partial) implementation and controlled development, taking account of cultural, institutional and regional aspects.

Categories of Professionals

We distinguish three categories of professionals acting or interacting with informatics in a broad sense:

• I users non-I professionals using ready-made I technology or I applications in their work
• I appliers non-I professionals applying I knowledge and I skills in areas different from informatics
• I workers I professionals working in the field of informatics.

It is important to note that I appliers and I workers generally will also be I users, while I workers may or may not be I appliers too. We refer to the working document for a detailed description of these three categories of professionals and their subcategories.

Graduate Profiles

In order to efficiently and effectively cater to the educational needs of the identified categories of professionals, we find it helpful to introduce graduate profiles. ICF-2000 deals with four graduate I profiles, details of which are given in the working document:

Basic Instrumental I Profile
Basic Conceptual I Profile
Minor I Profile
Major I Profile

In each of the graduate profiles, we distinguish a generic component and components that are specifically linked to other disciplines.

Curriculum Components

Curriculum components for the various graduate profiles are formed from building blocks (units or modules), all of which belong to one or more of the following overall themes:

• representation of information
• formalism in information processing
• information modelling
• algorithmics
• system design
• software development
• potentials and limitations of computing and related technologies
• computer systems and architectures
• computer-based communication
• social and ethical implications
• personal and interpersonal skills
• broader perspectives and context (including links with other disciplines).

This framework of twelve themes is a slightly adapted and newly edited version of the "common core" of issues, concepts and skills developed at the 1997 WG3.2 conference.

Implementation Factors and Strategies

ICF-2000 does not aim at offering one ideal model curriculum. Instead, it recognises the need for a considerable degree of freedom for implementation in which one can account for specific needs, restrictions, preconditions and circumstantial opportunities, such as

• cultural and societal setting
• institutional size and scope
• specific disciplines and educational programmes offered by the educational institution
• available budget, personnel and resources
• background and potential of the faculty
• culture among faculty and management
• management commitment to informatics
• willingness to change
• student-body characteristics
• access to informatics expertise in general
• access to collaborative or transfer options with other institutes
• access to collaborative or transfer options with industry
• level of informatics penetration in the region.

Finally

The ultimate goal of the series of working documents to be produced is an elegant, state-of-the-art informatics curriculum framework, from which various curriculum implementations can be constructed in a straightforward way.

For more information, one may contact Mr. Brian Samways, chair of TC3: Brian_Samways@birmingham.gov.uk .

1 Mulder, F., van Weert, T.J. [eds.] Informatics in higher education: Views on informatics and noninformatics curricula, Proceedings of the IFIP/WG3.2 Working Conference on "Informatics (computer science) as a discipline and in other disciplines: what is in common?" London: Chapman & Hall, (1998)

* member of WG3.2
** chair of WG3.2

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