=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2861/paper_4
|storemode=property
|title=S-curves of R. Foster's Technological Processes and Labor Market Challenges to the Higher Education System
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2861/paper_4.pdf
|volume=Vol-2861
|authors=Victoria Drozdova,Galina Shagrova,Oxsana Mezentseva,Nurlan Tursynhanov
}}
==S-curves of R. Foster's Technological Processes and Labor Market Challenges to the Higher Education System==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2861/paper_4.pdf
S-curves of R. Foster's Technological Processes and Labor
Market Challenges to the Higher Education System
Victoria Drozdovaa, Galina Shagrovaa , Oxsana Mezentceva a and Nurlan Tursinhanov b
a
North Caucasus Federal University, 1 Pushkin street, Stavropol, 355017, Russia
b
Samarkand State University, Samarkand, 140104, University blv. 15, Uzbekistan
Annotation
It is shown that the rapid changes taking place in modern society put forward new
requirements for the training of engineering personnel and create certain challenges to the
education system, which should not only train qualified personnel to work with existing high-
tech technologies, but also work for the future. Under these conditions, new approaches have
been used to effectively train IT specialists, allowing them to develop tolerance to
uncertainty, and prepare them for life and work during technological discontinuity. The
implementation of such approaches is carried out by developing a self-established
educational standard of higher education in the field of training "Information systems and
technologies", which takes into account the conflicting requirements of production and
society based on the Federal state educational standard and professional standards in the
relevant fields of activity. On the basis of the proposed standard three educational programs
have been developed, taking into account both the needs of the regional labor market and the
objectives of the programs "Digital Economy of the Russian Federation", the development of
the North Caucasus Federal District and North Caucasus Federal University, which allows to
prepare a competitive, ready for innovation activities and self-actualization of Master's
degree.
Keywords 1
Educational standard, educational program, technological discontinuities, professional
competencies.
1. Introduction
In 1987, a translation of the book by American innovation specialist Richard Foster was published
in Moscow, where a large number of examples analyzed the life cycle of various production
technologies [1]. The main idea of R. Foster is that the life cycle of any technology corresponds to
an S-curve (figure 1). In section I, efforts do not lead to noticeable results. This section corresponds to
research, development, implementation, and pilot operation. In area II, relatively little effort can lead
to noticeable results. This is the area of successful operation of the production technology. And in
section III, efforts are yielding fewer results. In the end, any technology completes its life cycle
completely and gives way to other technologies on the market. The transition from one technology to
another or from one S-curve to another S-curve corresponds to a technological discontinuity.
If we analyze the technological discontinuities in the field of computer science and technology, it
is easy to see that they occurred frequently in the twentieth century. The time required to complete the
entire S-curve depends on many factors. In particular, the transition time from one generation of
processors to another is measured in years, and the lifetime of data carriers can vary from tens of
SLET-2020: International Scientific Conference on Innovative Approaches to the Application of Digital Technologies in Education,
November 12-13, 2020, Stavropol, Russia
EMAIL: vdrozdova@ncfu.ru (Victoria Drozdova); gshagrova@ncfu.ru (Galina Shagrova); omezentceva@ncfu.ru (Oxsana Mezentceva);
sslnt@mail.ru (Nurlan Tursinhanov)
ORCID: 0000-0003-3925-4860 (Victoria Drozdova); 0000-0001-5642-5612 (Galina Shagrova); 0000-0001-5503-1056 (Oxsana
Mezentceva); 0000-0001-9632-201X (Nurlan Tursinhanov)
©️ 2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
53
years for perforated tapes and perforated cards to thousands of years for paper. Technology
discontinuities have become more frequent recently, and will continue to occur more frequently in the
coming years. It is difficult to predict how many technological discontinuities will occur during the
40 years that a University graduate must work before retirement, how many new professions will
appear during this time, and how many will disappear. But the high rate of development of the
industry creates certain challenges to the education system, which usually lags behind the advanced
achievements of production.
Performance
Efforts
Figure 1: S-curve
The point of view of employers is usually reduced to the requirements to form the graduate's
competencies and practical skills that will allow him to quickly master the work on a specific
technology on the second section of the S-curve. There is often a fair remark from employers to
Universities that graduates have to finish their education in the workplace.
The authors of the article have experience in successfully passing professional and public
accreditation in the field of training 09.04.02 "Information systems and technologies". The
requirements of the accreditation Agency were mainly limited to the application of a practice-oriented
approach to the training of engineering personnel, which focuses on practice and the formation of
practical skills. Thus, professional and public accreditation is focused on training personnel to work
on the second section of the S-curve, and the approach of the accreditation Agency coincides with the
approach of employers who need qualified personnel "here and now". The needs of society and the
need for sustainable development of the Russian Federation dictate a slightly different approach.
From the taxpayers ' point of view, the training of engineering and technical personnel is expensive
and time-consuming, so if there are technological discontinuities, it is better to retain engineers,
provide them with professional retraining or additional education, rather than training from the very
beginning. Conflicting demands from employers and society create certain challenges to the education
system, which must not only train qualified personnel to work with existing high-tech technologies,
i.e. solve the problem of an acute shortage of qualified engineering and technical personnel at the
present time, but also work for the future.
2. Goals and objectives of the study
A specialist in the field of computer science and computer engineering must understand the
inevitability of constant changes and be ready to master new technologies. No matter how successful
the information technology used today is, another one will come tomorrow. Therefore, the modern
education system should prepare graduates not only to work with modern high-tech technologies
today, but also to the technological discontinuities that will occur tomorrow. This means that the
graduate must not only acquire the necessary set of competencies and practical skills to work on real
54
projects today, but also acquire fundamental University knowledge that allows analyzing industry
trends and making forecasts for both personal career and employer. Therefore, when developing
curricula, Universities, in addition to practices and practice-oriented disciplines, must also include
disciplines that form tolerance to uncertainty [2], intellectual curiosity, the ability to constantly learn
new things, apply a systematic approach, and identify system-wide connections and patterns. These
disciplines should prepare the graduate for life and work in conditions of uncertainty, i.e. during
technological discontinuities.
Perhaps this approach was taken into account when working on the educational standards of the
Federal state educational standard 3++, which increased the share of theoretical disciplines in the
preparation of masters. For example, for the field of study 09.04.02 the transition to the new Federal
state educational standards 3++ increased the volume of compulsory subjects is about 20 s.e.
accordingly, reducing the amount of practices. In addition, the necessary universal competencies are
formulated, mastering which graduates of the master's program will receive deep fundamental
knowledge necessary for working not only with modern high-tech technologies, but also in conditions
of uncertainty.
The purpose of this work was to present the self-established educational standard of higher
education of the North Caucasus Federal University, to create and study educational programs of
various profiles.
3. Analysis of literature
The need to develop tolerance to uncertainty is currently widely discussed. Various problems that
arise in conditions of uncertainty are discussed in works that discuss the problems that arise when
forming the course structure [3], when modifying the cognitive model of leadership in conditions of
uncertainty [4], when building a system model of change processes [5], in the process of evolutionary
activity education [2]. Tolerance to uncertainty as a psychological phenomenon is described in [6].
The conference "Man in the conditions of uncertainty" of the Samara state technical University was
devoted to a wide coverage of educational problems in conditions of uncertainty (reference to the
collected works is given in [2]). The requirements for an uncertainty-tolerant specialist formulated in
[2] fully apply to the IT specialist. However, the training of an IT specialist should have features
related to the fact that technological discontinuities in their professional activities occur much more
often than in other industries. Therefore, when developing curricula and programs, it is necessary to
take into account not only evolutionary, but also abrupt changes.
A list of the key competencies of the digital economy formulated in the document "the Order of
Ministry of economic development dated 24 January 2020 № 41 "On approval of methods of
calculation of indicators of the Federal project "Personnel for the "digital economy" national
programme "Digital economy of the Russian Federation". One of them (competence 2) is self -
development in conditions of uncertainty. This competence implies the ability of a person to set
educational goals for the emerging life tasks, to select solutions and means of development (including
using digital tools) of other necessary competencies. Another aspect of the application and
implementation of new information technologies is related to the fact that new technologies also bring
new dangers to their users. Software developers insert so-called "bookmarks" into it, which can be
controlled remotely. It is no accident that after the introduction of sanctions, the "import substitution"
direction appeared in our country, which has not yet received wide support, but has created new
challenges to the education system. This leads to the need to introduce disciplines related to
information security into the educational process. For new information technologies and, accordingly,
for new S-shaped cycles, it is necessary to use a systematic approach, analyze both the advantages and
risks of their use.
Our country is not only characterized by technological backwardness from industrialized countries
[7] and the desire to accelerate the transition to new high-tech technologies, which is enshrined in a
number of government documents, but also the lack of a unified architecture, a secure national
platform, and an information technology development strategy. In order to meet the requirements set
out in the document “Digital economy” [8], it is necessary not only to develop the competencies
necessary for graduates to work with distributed registry systems, blockchain and smart home
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technologies, cloud technologies, etc., but also the competencies that allow them to analyze both the
advantages and risks of using them.
Good scientific and technical literature plays a very important role in obtaining fundamental
education. The current requirement for the year of publication of textbooks, which prescribes the use
of only new textbooks published no more than 10 years ago for classical subjects and no more than 5
years ago for new special courses, must be applied informally. For new special courses that study new
processes, concepts, and technologies, of course, new textbooks are also needed. Information and
communication technologies go through their entire life cycle very quickly, and textbooks in this area
are rapidly aging. But for classical disciplines, there are wonderful textbooks written decades ago that
have world authority and have not lost their relevance. These include "Theoretical physics" by L. D.
Landau and E. M. Lifshitz, "Operations Research" by E. S. Wentzel, "Numerical methods" by A. A.
Samarsky, and others. The ban on the use of well-known authoritative textbooks just because they
were published earlier is unjustified. This shows a lack of confidence in teachers, who have the right
to choose their own textbooks to ensure high-level education.
Another challenge to the education system is the universal introduction of distance technologies
due to the virus pandemic. One of the aspects of the mass transition to distance learning technologies
is to increase competition between Universities and teachers. Lectures by leading professors from
leading Universities and educational materials from their own University are equally available to
students on-line. This is very good, but as practical experience shows, the use of distance learning is
not so much due to the desire to improve the quality of training, but rather to reduce costs and is
aimed at partial, and in the future, perhaps, complete replacement of the full-time training system, and
as a result, the rejection of the traditional training system, which is especially harmful for engineering
education, which should be fundamental. In [9], it is pointed out that "young people are less interested
in traditional forms of education", so distance education should not compete with the traditional full-
time form of education, but should help it.
Traditionally, engineering training was based on basic (fundamental) mathematical and natural
science education, since the engineer's activity consisted of creative scientific work, the results of
which were implemented in technical practice. Currently, the curriculum is reducing the hours
allocated to the study of mathematical and natural science disciplines, which affects the quality of
engineer training. However, modern realities are such that information technologies belong to a
rapidly developing field of knowledge, without mastering which it is impossible to train a highly
qualified specialist for any, even well-established, field of knowledge. IT technologies have not only
received rapid development, but also increased their knowledge intensity, and this, accordingly,
requires a qualitatively new training of an engineer who is not only a user, but also a developer of this
technology, who in modern conditions needs to perform not only the functions of a technical
specialist, but also a scientist in solving specific knowledge-intensive tasks, and in some cases, the
head of serious innovative projects. When preparing an engineer who has the necessary skills for
effective work, it is necessary to focus on the mandatory repetition, and in some cases, the study of
basic mathematical and natural science methods and laws within special disciplines, without
knowledge of which it is impossible to study special disciplines in depth. It is necessary to provide a
systematic presentation of the mathematical foundations, system analysis, probability theory, etc.
from the angle of their practical use in solving specific engineering problems, and the presentation
should be conducted with appropriate mathematical rigor based on the current level of science
development.
Another issue that I would like to focus on is that currently there are no scientifically based
recommendations on the application of sanitary standards when using modern computer equipment
and various kinds of gadgets in educational activities when conducting remote classes with students of
higher educational institutions, which are fixed by law. In sanitary standards there are General
guidelines for the organization of labor and leisure in the use of computer technology. In conditions of
self-isolation, when not only our country, but also other countries had to switch to distance learning
due to the coronavirus pandemic, this issue is almost of primary importance, since it concerns both the
health of the younger generation and their teachers. Students are forced to spend more time on the
computer than in traditional training. Moreover, the initial interest that arises almost always when a
person is faced with something new gradually fades and apathy comes, since students who are
isolated, outside the team that solves the same problems, do not feel the spirit of competition.
56
Teachers, in turn, are forced to spend a large amount of time not on professional development in
their subject area, but on getting acquainted with various technical and software tools necessary for
conducting classes in remote mode, configuring and debugging them, as well as preparing for this
type of classes.
4. Methodology
The development of a self-established educational standard for higher education of the North
Caucasus Federal University was carried out on the basis of the Federal standard 3++, taking into
account the requirements of professional standards for the following areas and areas of professional
activity of graduates:
01 Education and science (in the field of education and research in the field of information
systems and technologies);
06 Communications, information and communication technologies (in the field of research,
development and implementation of information technologies and systems);
40 Cross-cutting professional activities in industry (in the field of organization, management and
conducting research and development in the field of information systems in various fields and areas of
the digital economy).
5. Results
This paper describes the results of the development of the self-established educational standard in
the direction of training 09.04.02 "Information systems and technologies", taking into account modern
requirements and features of training IT specialists. The self-established educational standard is
developed on the basis of the Federal state standard 3++, it contains basic disciplines, variable
disciplines and practices. Universal and General professional competencies of the self-established
educational standard meet the requirements of the Federal standard in the direction 09.04.02
"Information systems and technologies". Professional competencies are divided into two groups:
mandatory professional competencies and professional competencies determined based on the
directivity (profile) of the master's program, based on professional standards that correspond to the
selected type (one or more) of professional activity of graduates.
A graduate who has mastered the master's program, regardless of the directivity (profile) of the
educational program, must have professional competencies (PC) that correspond to the solution of
professional tasks in research activities, which are mandatory: PC-1(Able to carry out mathematical
modeling and research of information processes, systems and technologies, objects, and devices of
computer technology based on modern computer modeling packages), PC-2 (Able to develop and
research theoretical and experimental models of objects of professional activity in various fields) и
PC-3 (Able to plan and conduct experiments, process and analyze results using modern information
technologies).
The basic block of master's programs included the following subjects: Mathematical support of
decision support systems (4 ECTS), Methods of research and modeling of information processes and
technologies (7 ECTS), System engineering (7 ECTS), Organization and management of scientific
research and educational activities in the field of information systems (6 ECTS), Systems of computer
modeling of business processes (4 ECTS). Thus, the study of the basic block disciplines should
prepare the graduate for a broad systematic approach to the current state and prospects of the industry;
decision-making in conditions of risk and uncertainty; search for innovative approaches to solving
complex problems.
Three master's degree programs have been developed on the basis of the self-established
educational standard: "Data Management"; "Information Systems in Science and Industry"; "Software
For Robotic Systems". The features of these educational programs are reflected in the variable
modules.
For the educational program "Data Management", the variable module includes the following
subjects: "Application of Mathematical Logic in Control Systems", "Parallel computing",
"Computational and Experimental Methods in Scientific Research"," Modern Trends of the
57
Information Systems Development", "Artificial intelligence Systems"," DataBases in High
Performance Information Systems".
For the educational program "Information Systems in Science and Industry", the variable module
includes the following subjects: "Logic and Methodology of Science", "Multimedia Technologies in
Professional Activity", "Computational and experimental methods in scientific research",
"Information systems in science and production", "Neurotechnologies and Artificial Intelligence",
"Industrial Internet", "Web Mining".
For the educational program "Software For Robotic Systems", the variable module includes the
following subjects: "Logic And Methodology of Science", "Robotic Systems", "Programming Of
Robotic Systems", "Neural Networks And Deep Learning", "Educational Robotics", "Web Mining",
"Industrial Robotics",”Artificial Intelligence", "Industrial Internet".
When studying the disciplines of variable modules, the focus is on: technologies for processing,
storing, transmitting and protecting information, organizing and processing big data; software
development, technologies of information systems; web technologies; technologies based on
forecasting methods and the use of intelligent systems, data mining methods and algorithms for
analyzing and processing data of complex structure, unstructured data and data in natural languages
used in solving scientific and applied problems in the field of science and production.
6. Discussion
Experience in developing and using of the self-established educational standards in educational
activities has shown that their main advantage is the ability to: form their own set of competencies
depending on the directivity (profile) of the master's program in this area of training; vary the labor
intensity of the basic and variable parts of the educational program, freedom to choose both
fundamental and applied disciplines that reflect the directivity of training; use their own standards and
tools for assessing the quality of training that adequately reflect the degree of competence formation
among students as a result of mastering the chosen training program.
Thus, the training of masters on the basis of the self-established educational standards allows you
to solve the problem of preparing a competitive, ready to innovate and self-actualize master in the
field of information systems and technologies, who is able to solve professional problems and has a
sense of responsibility.
7. Conclusion
When training engineering and technical personnel, it is necessary not only to take into account the
practice-oriented approach and the need to develop tolerance to uncertainty, but also to prepare
masters for work and life, taking into account possible technological discontinuities as an inevitable
component of scientific and technological progress.
8. References
[1] Foster R.N. Innovation: The Attacker's Advantage. New York: Summit Books, 1986.
[2] Melnik N.M. Formation of tolerance to uncertainty in the process of education based on
evolution-activity approach// Man in the conditions of uncertainty:collection of scientific papers
in 2 volumes / under the General and scientific editorship of doctor of science E. V. Bakshutova,
doctor of science O. V. Yusupova, Ph. D., Ph. D. in psychology E. Y. Dvoynikova. - Vol. 2. -
Samara: Samara state technical University, 2018 –247p. (in Russian).
[3] DeRoma V., Martin K., Kessler M.L. The relationship between tolerance for ambiguity and need
for course structure // Journal of Instructional Psychology, 2003. Vol. 30 (2). P. 104-109.
[4] Lane M.S., Klenke K. The ambiguity tolerance interface: A modified social cognitive model for
leading under uncertainty // Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 2004. Vol. 10 (3).
P. 69-81.
[5] Merenluoto K., Lehtinen E. Number concept and conceptual change: Towards a systemic model
of the processes of change // Learning and Instruction, 2004. Vol. 14(5). P. 519-534.
[6] Leonov I. N. tolerance to uncertainty as a psychological phenomenon: the history of formation //
Bulletin of Udmurt University, 2014, Issue 4, Pp. 43-52(in Russian).
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[7] Knyaginin V. N. New technological revolution: challenges and opportunities for Russia. Expert
and analytical report. Moscow: TSR. - 2017. - 136 P. Electronic resource:
https://strategy.csr.ru/user/pages/researches/novaya-tehnologicheskaya-revolutsiya-2017-10-
13.pdf.
[8] Document No. 204 of May 7, 2018: The national program "Digital economy 2024".
http://static.government.ru/media/files/9gFM4FHj4PsB79I5v7yLVuPgu4bvR7M0.pdf (in
Russian).
[9] Baranova I. A., Putilov A.V. Formation of competencies and innovative trends in remote
engineering training // Engineering Education. - 2017. - v. 22. - p. 10-18 (in Russian).
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