ICT trends and challenges for research in Serbia and possibilities for cooperation with other countries

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1 ICT trends and challenges for research in Serbia and possibilities for cooperation with other countries Mirjana Ivanović, Zoran Budimac, Živana Komlenov, Gordana Rakić Department of Mathematics and Informatics Faculty of Science University of Novi Sad, Serbia

2 General information about Serbia Total area: 88,361 km² Population: 2007 estimate: 10,087, census: 7,498,0014 (without Kosovo) Density: 115 /km² GDP (PPP) estimate: Total $ billion Per capita $7,234

3 Research methodology The report is based on several publicly available research papers: The Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia two surveys on the use of ICT (2006) The Centre for Research of Information Technologies of the Belgrade Open School (CePIT) the study Internet Penetration in Serbia (2006) CeSID (Centre for Free Election and Democracy, a non-governmental organization) - a research on ICT usage prepared for Telecom Serbia (2005)

4 Technologies penetration and usage: State-of-the art investigation According to the report of The Republic Telecommunication Agency (RATEL), only in 2006: Licenses were issued to 5 TV and 5 radio stations with national coverage 150 Internet providers were registered in the Agency register, and 95 of them have been granted work authorization 67 cable systems operators were registered in the Agency register and 47 of them were granted work authorization More than 5000 radio station licenses were issued A new plan for digital broadcasting was coordinated, enabling the coverage of the Serbian territory with up to 48 different TV programs, and radio programs

5 Number of users per service (thousands)

6 Proportion of the devices in the households

7 Usage of computers in households

8 Usage of computers by enterprises

9 Usage of Internet (at home, at work, at school or any other place) No 74% Yes 24% Do not know/refuse to answer 2%

10 Frequency of Internet usage (When did you last use the Internet?)

11 Type of Internet connection in the households Classical Cable ADSL Wireless Mobile dial-up modem phone modem ISDN Some other type of access

12 Years of Internet usage One year 2 years 3-4 years 5-6 years 7-10 years More than or less 10 years

13 Web content search Religion Polithics Pornography Health and medicine Business Sport Art and culture Computers and technology Travelling and tourism Science Education Music

14 Internet usage in Serbian enterprises

15 PC and Internet penetration in Serbia from 1999 to 2006

16 Technologies penetration and usage: Research projects The number of national and international (bilateral, interregional ) projects has been rapidly increased and this growing has a tendency to continue The main goal is to improve general quality of personnel and infrastructure and raise level, security and performances of ICT applied technologies and services Projects financially supported by Serbian government, donations and funds by institutions from EU countries The Republic Informatics and Internet Office directly participates in the functioning of the esee (Electronic South Eastern Europe) Initiative

17 Technologies penetration and usage: Challenges for research & development Foreign companies entered Serbia => need for a lot of knowledgeable and skilled employees with ICT skills Almost 52% of Internet non-users have no intention to start using the Internet - they find it useless, not needed It is necessary to: develop various information services - the ones that ease the citizens' communication with the Government institutions inform the citizens of the technologies to access those services develop the adequate telecommunication infrastructure pursue the liberalization of telecommunication market preserve the security of electronic transaction by appropriate legislation

18 Knowledge and content availability and usage: egovernment indicators egovernment Internet Portal an access point for interactive communication and cooperation between Government and citizens, business and other institutions 12 citizen-oriented and 8 business-oriented integrated electronic services Most of the governmental institutions (ministries, agencies, local offices etc.) have their own Web sites (94%), and offer: information to interested citizens (42% of sites) documents for download (39%) possibility to submit user data electronically and apply for some sort of service (11%) complete Web service solutions (related to taxation, jobs search, social security, personal documents, cars registration, health care, business registration, etc. - 8%)

19 Usage of the public administration services via Internet in enterprises

20 Knowledge and content availability and usage: ebusiness and ecommerce trends In 2003 there were 870 registered businesses in ICT sector with about employees business Web sites were published in 2003 and that trend in growth was continued There are 200 business-to-consumer Web shops, and only small number of business-to-business locations An extremely high percentage of citizens (88.4%) have never purchased/ordered goods or services via the Internet Only a bit more than half of the enterprises in Serbia (52.9%) have their own Web sites the existing ones are used for: marketing of the enterprise s products (89.0%) allowing access to the products catalogues and price lists (53.1%) offering additional support after purchasing (23.3%)

21 Enterprises which ordered goods/services via the Internet

22 Knowledge and content availability and usage: Cultural content online Broadcasting channels, journals, and newspapers (more then 90% of most important newspapers and journals have concise and abridged versions of their issues online) Serbian archives, museums and libraries keep large number of textual and image data and other values from the national scientific and cultural heritage National Library of Serbia => Digital National Library of Serbia Participation in international digitization projects: International Children's Digital Library Project Million Book Project National Centre for Digitization Consortia of Serbian Libraries for coordinated acquisition of foreign databases and full-text services (KoBSON )

23 Knowledge and content availability and usage: Knowledge tools The value of the Serbian IT market was estimated at USD 340 million in 2003 > 100 leading private ICT companies, representatives of universities and research institutes => an ICT cluster in Serbia > 1,400 IT companies (95% domestic, 3% with mixed ownership, 2% foreign companies) 835 software development companies (a significant number of offshore and outsourcing companies) providing a complete range of IT solutions and services including: IT consulting and Software outsourcing solutions CRM solutions for call centers e-business solutions Database and business intelligence solutions Custom software solutions Industrial embedded solutions

24 Knowledge and content availability and usage: Research projects Innovation project I MST R. Serbia ( ) Technological project Development of standards for digitization, computer archiving and restoring of cultural values IT A MSTD R. Serbia ( ) NCD (National Center for Digitization) brings together leading scientific and cultural institutions in Serbia in the field of digitization The journal NCD Review Organization of annual national and international conferences on digitization Participation in SEEDI (South-Eastern European Digitization Initiative)

25 Knowledge and content availability and usage: Challenges for R&D Standards and protocols in digitization for: Organization of data and forms for computer archiving of textual, image, video and audio data in national heritage Organization of local bases and protocols for access to databases of institutions involved in the project Equipment and protocols in protection of digital data Development of information systems and software: For implementation of proposed standards and metadata That could enable one to manipulate already existing databases For digital restoration and protection of digital counterparts and author rights Electronic publishing Internet oriented software for presentation of scientific and cultural heritage: Virtual library and virtual museum of 3D objects Portal for information exchange on digitized entities

26 ICT education and training: State-of-the art investigation Computers are available in almost all elementary and secondary schools, but not all of them are available to pupils 70% of the ICT equipment is used by pupils 8% by teachers 12% is reserved for school administration According to the total number of pupils in Serbian schools, there are 0.03 computers per student Schools generally have Internet access, though in some cases it is not available to pupils Students acquire ICT skills in obligatory (secondary schools) subjects or elective (elementary schools) subjects in their curricula

27 Percentage of secondary schools with computer classrooms

28 Average number of students per computer in schools with computer classrooms

29 Percentage of schools having their own Web sites

30 Teachers using the Internet In many secondary schools teachers are required to continually pursue ICT training programs, for instance to acquire ECDL certificates, with the possibility to prepare for such exams completely free of charge Petnica Science Centre provides in-service training courses for small groups of teachers in information technology and the Internet in education 25% Yes No Do you use computers in class preparation? 18% 75% Do you use computers in class execution? 82% Yes No

31 Higher education ICT programs and research infrastructure 5 state universities (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Nis, Pristina) with high quality ICT programs and research infrastructure Different curricula in accordance to the Bologna declaration, European Credit Transfer System and newest European educational trends A significant number of private faculties (their quality is still unknown) Important international educational projects (TEMPUS, DAAD, WUS, CEEPUS) => preparation of new electronic high-quality course materials New methodologies and ways of teaching (active teaching, discussions and teacher-student interaction, coursework, team-work, seminar papers)

32 Employment and Skills One million computer users experts of different profiles who are educated for simple applications development and maintenance (basic and advanced users) active IT professionals competent in a broad range of methodologies, technologies and tools while supporting efficient development of high quality software, systems integration and hardware developing front end, back end and middle ware components, together with creating customized software and systems managing and enhancing client s entire information technology process

33 Vocational education ICT-related programs for ICT professionals and users Need for education in certain areas of informatics, business and management, for former graduates, to raise their productivity Need to establish a stable infrastructure that would enable lifelong, context-sensitive learning in many fields of ICT Need of ICT professionals to continue their formal education, and be included in master studies according to the Bologna processes Permanent need to have a close contact with the actual and authentic needs of the industry of the country and region At this moment there are only ideas for realization such programs and projects From time to time particular companies engage respective university professors or highly skilled professionals to deliver different courses on emerging topics and technologies in ICT

34 ICT education and training: Research projects Most of the research and development (R&D) performance is concentrated in the higher education sector and the government sector (about 90%) Researchers in the Republic of Serbia are allocated in Higher education sector Independent R&D institutes R&D units in the industry Science and technology (S&T) infrastructure Almost 50% of researchers are allocated in the natural and technical sciences Projects funded by the Ministry of Science, or even more often educational (TEMPUS, DAAD, WUS ) or research (SEE_NET, FP projects ) EU sponsored projects

35 ICT education and training: Challenges for R&D Lots of opportunities for making tighter connections and mutual collaboration between different WBC and SEE countries Smaller, bilateral and inter-regional projects Encouraging signs of EU research funds and foreign firms that are ready to support and collaborate in realization of different projects in a range of ICT fields Universities and research institutes initiatives to develop research centers focusing on external collaborations and making better connections with leading local companies

36 Main stakeholders Republic Telecommunication Agency Development strategy of information society in Republic of Serbia The Republic Information Technology and Internet Agency Ministry for Telecommunications and Information Ministry of Science and Environmental Protection Universities, research institutes Major IT companies: Microsoft Corp, FinSoft London, TeleTrader, ComTrade Group, Micronas NIT Telecom, the most influential Internet providers, cable operators, etc.

37 Future actions planed Numerous opportunities for cooperation between different universities and local companies in SEE and whole Europe Opportunities offered by FP7, especially interesting to universities and research centres Other EU funds devoted to educational purposes: TEMPUS, Leonardo Da Vinci, Erasmus Mundus... Possible project ideas: establishing networks of learning centers for lifelong learning to increase quality of employees and fill-in the gaps in knowledge, understanding, comprehension, and competencies of WBC professionals and new graduated students enhancing cooperation in Vocational Education and Training and becoming part of development of the European Qualifications Framework and the European Credit system for VET, with the appropriate role changes of vocational teachers and trainers