Computer Networks Laboratory

5th annual International Conference on Emerging e-Learning Technologies and their Applications – ICETA 2007 took place in the Congress Centre of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Stará Lesná on 6–7 September 2007 (Information and Communication Technologies in Education). The Conference is over and we are full of new impressions. Based on the opinions of the participants we can consider this year’s conference ICETA 2007 was one of the most successful one and will be even internationally one of the most successful events focusing on the issues of progressive communication technologies and their application in education.

Almost 120 papers and posters from authors from 14 countries were presented at this conference (including Japan, USA, Russia, Ukraine, Finland, Poland, Australia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, England, Lithuania, Egypt and Belgium). The program of the conference included specialized seminar „VENUS Project Summer School“ (Programming tools for promotion of the communication between the partners from various countries and their application in education and business“ – Venus Summer School on Social Software: Application of Social Software in education and business). The main part of the seminar took place in Leuvene, Belgium, and its whole program was accessible through the videoconference connection from the conference venue.

The significance of the conference was underlined by the fact that it was held under the auspices of Mr. Jan Fígeľ, member of the European Commission responsible for education, professional preparation, culture and youth, of Mr. Ján Mikolaj, Vice-chairman of the Government and the Minister of Education of the Slovak Republic and Mr. Anton Čižmár, Rector of the Technical University in Košice, Slovak Republic, who were also personally present at the conference.

Mr. Ján Mikolaj, Minister of Education of the Slovak Republic was in charge of the ceremonial opening of the conference. As a part of his introductory address he appreciated the topical nature and significance of the conference. Also Mr. Anton Čižmár, Rector of the Technical University in Košice and Mr. Marcel Rebroš, General Manager of Cisco Systems Slovakia spoke to the conference participants during the opening ceremony.

The participants of the conference paid much attention to Mr. Fígeľ, European Commissioner who underlined various social aspects of introduction of educational technologies. These aspects were also the topic of discussion during the working lunch of Mr. Figeľ with prominent representatives of public and private sphere in the Slovak Republic and the foreign guests of the conference.

ICETA conferences are well known among the specialized public because of its top communication infrastructure. As a part of these conferences in the past unique pilot experimental solutions were used and presented for the first time in the Slovak Republic (e.g. TV signal transmission in the direct commercial TV broadcasting on the basis of data networks, the first videoconference connection with the work stations in Australia and Japan, etc.) As far as the technical provisions are concerned this year’s conference did not lag behind previous events at all. It has become a tradition that the whole program could be followed also on the internet. Videostreaming technologies based on IP streaming we used and it was possible to participate in the discussion on the basis of the videoconference transmission on the basis of the videoconference technology http://evo.caltech.edu/ and the virtual room reserved for the needs of the conference (IP streaming through website http://videoserver.cnl.tuke.sk). Videoconference facilities were used to transmit the lectures from the main hall in other premises. All premises of the conference were equipped with freely available WiFi connection to Internet, as well as with IP telephone connection etc.

Two videoconference papers were presented from abroad during the conference: videoconference input from Prof. Taylor, University of Queensland, Australia, world renowned expert in the field of ICT application in education and from Prof. K. Salmenkoki, Finland.

The ICETA Conference is traditionally organized in cooperation with a number of distinguished university laboratories, institutions and companies, such as Technical University in Kosice, and Košice IT Valley Association, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, University of Žilina, Communication Technologies Forum, Slovak IT Association, SAAIC, SANET, Bank Slovenská sporiteľňa, a.s., as well as distinguished companies from the IT industry, such as the general partner of the conference and the global leader in the field of computer networks the company Cisco Systems, HP Slovakia, Oracle Slovakia, Alef0, Datalan, MCEDU, elfa and the media partners PC REVUE and Computer Press.

The current intense development of information and telecommunication technologies strikingly influences the field of education on all levels. Obviously the education based on use of ICT will become a part of the most important public service. The conference program offered contributions oriented on the theoretical, practical and methodological aspect of the presented educational services and solutions. Also presented was experience of prominent experts, strategic objectives of the representatives of public institutions, solutions of the global players in the field of communication and information technologies, as well as the experience of academic laboratories of almost all continents. Prominent place was devoted to presentations devoted to social aspects of introduction of new educational technologies, their effectiveness, educational methodologies and procedures. Especially interesting were presentations devoted to new roles of teachers in the pedagogic process implemented in the environment of unprecedented information expansion brought by new communication technologies based on internet and their wide use by students (Web 2.0, YouTube, Second Life, Wikipedia…).

The working program of the conference was divided in the plenary sections and thematically oriented parallel sections. The plenary sections included presentations of the invited top experts from several countries (Prof. J.C. Taylor, Australia; T. Usagawa, Japan, P. Kess and K. Salmenjoky, Finland; S. Zvacek, USA; D. Bauerova, Czech Republic), representatives of the Ministry of Education (J. Mikolaj, Minister, D. Meško, General Director of the Informatics Section), sponsors of the conference, as well as prominent multinational companies and institutions (J. Connell, UK; H.M. Parke, USA; F. Baranec, Slovak Republic/Cisco; B. Tvaroška, Slovak Republic/HP; P. Kukura, Slovak Telecom; P. Tomčák, Slovak Republic/Oracle; P. Horvath, Slovak Republic/SANET). Parallel sections were specified for a wide spectrum of experts who presented their experience and recommendations in the field of use of progressive ICT solutions.

Concurrent activity of the conference was appraisal of the 4th annual competition of e-learning projects “e-Learning in Practice” prepared by the investigators from the Slovak Republic, Czech Republic and Ukraine (16 selected projects were chosen for the final evaluation). The members of the jury were the prominent experts form the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic in the field of introduction of new forms of ICT supported education.

The objective of the competition was to stimulate dissemination of new forms of education based on ICT, to evaluate the standard of activities in this field and to promote the quality of the educational process, to open mutual communication and discussion between the individual educational institutions and public about the possibilities opened by ICT, to promote production of e-learning educational materials.

The competing projects were presented in the presence of the international evaluation commission on September 5, 2007 and the victors of the competition were announced as a part of the final ceremony of the conference on September 7, 2007. The competition consisted of three categories (On-line Curses, Supporting Materials, Complex On-line Educational Systems) and three best projects were awarded in each category. Following are the results of this competition:

Category: „*On-line Course*“

1st place: „*Methodology of On-line Course Preparation*“; this project was submitted by Vejvodová Jana, ZCU Plzeň 2nd place: „*Know Your Money*“; this project was submitted by Stasselová Lucia, Millenium 000, s.r.o., Bratislava. This project was awarded the special award of the Ministry of Education as the “*Project with Extraordinary Contribution in the Education*“. 3rd place: „*Constrained PID Control/PID Regulators with Restrictions*“; this project was submitted by Ťapak Peter, FEI STU Bratislava

Category: „*Supporting Materials For On-line Education*“ 1st place: „*Principles of Geometric Optics*“; this project was submitted by Záhorec Ján, PF UKF Nitra 2nd place: „*On-line Assessment of Students’ Knowledge*”; this project was submitted by K. Žákova, Odráška Ľ., FEI Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava 3rd place: „*The System of Assessment of Knowledge and Skills*”; this project was submitted by Ján Genči, KPI FEI Technical University in Košice. This project was awarded also the special price of the General Manager of Cisco Systems Slovakia as the project with significant innovative elements.

Category: „*Complex On-line Educational system*“ was awarded the 1st place 1st place: „*E-learning Portal of the Department of Informatics*“, this project was submitted by Jozef Kapusta from Constantine Philosopher University in Nitra

Special price of the Rector of the Technical University in Košice as the „*Project with Exceptional Multimedia Preparation*“ was awarded to the project „*The Multimedia Course on the Discipline Computer Science*“. This project was submitted by Viktor Bondarenko, Kiev, Ukraine.

Also this year the ICETA Conference enjoyed much attention of specialists and of the public at large. More than 220 participants registered for the conference and a number of prominent guests, representatives of the public and private sphere from the Slovak Republic and from abroad, took part at the conference. For more information about the Conference program as well as photo documentation refer to www.elfa.sk/ICETA-2007/sk/.

The Conference communication infrastructure included the latest technologies and solutions and was provided in close cooperation with the Computer Network Laboratory from the Department of the Computers and Informatics of the Technical University in Košice and with the CALTECH Team from P.J.Šafárik University in Košice (videoconference transmission based on EVO technology).

The Conference organizers endeavored to turn the Conference in the venue for presentation of experience with the latest information and communication technologies in the educational practice, in the multidisciplinary international platform for information exchange in the research and development of multimedia and hypermedia applications, in the complex education support and a new communication service. Based on the opinions of the participants we are confident that during the two days of its duration the Conference has met this objective.

František Jakab, chairman of the Conference Organization Committee ICETA 2007, mobile phone No.: ++421 (0) 905 715 816