A User-Centered Software System for Admission Optimization and Education Process Management for Ph. D. Students
A User-Centered Software System for Admission Optimization and Education Process Management for Ph. D. Students

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents an information system aiming to optimize and streamline the process of Ph.D. students' admission and education, which significantly differs from the process of admitting undergraduate and graduate students. Designing user-centered software applications has been an ongoing trend for the past few years. Such application focus heavily on software usability and relies on well-defined goals that users need to achieve with the application's help. Often, agile methods are applied during development, as usage of traditional methods may lead to not being able to quickly respond to dynamic changes in the user's needs or requirements. As one of the basic forms of self-education and an important lifelong learning step, quality Ph. D. student education requires modern and innovative ways to manage the process. A user-centered software system puts the Ph. D. student, its main user, and other related users, such as scientific advisors in focus, greatly simplifying the process of the Ph. D. application, admission and education. Moreover, information and communication technology solutions have proven to lead to improvements in the quality of the education process itself and to its management. Usage of such solutions usually leads to an improvement in education quality, quality standards and educational institution competiveness among others. Ph. D. students are admitted in virtually every accredited higher education institution in Bulgaria. Thus, the presented software system can be used in any Bulgarian university in which Ph.D. students are educated. The paper also outlines the process and some ideas for its optimization. The system has been deployed in one of the Bulgarian universities and has been used since early 2017, during the 2017 admission of Ph. D. students, at first as a pilot to test the system with real data and in a real environment, subsequently receiving a positive response from all potential users. The creation and refinement of a web-based system allows not only for process automation in the field of document storage and student services, but also contributes to a higher quality of service of the Ph. D. students. The contribution includes providing of accurate information needed for evaluation, improvement of the administrative task planning and workflows, and providing more sources of feedback. The quick report generation allows the analysis and statistical processing, which is periodically required by reports at the university or at national levels. This inevitably leads to a rise in satisfaction of everyone involved in the process, from Ph.D. students to administrative staff members.

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