Silvia Gaftandzhieva

Plovdiv University "Paisii Hilendarski" · Department of Computer Science

The paper presents a model for quality evaluation of test items (TI) and tests used in various forms of e-learning in higher education. The model is based on surveys among students and experts concerning the design, development, implementation and evaluation of TI and tests in e-learning. The software module has been developed and experimented in o...

The quality assurance and evaluation of e-learning is of high priority for any up-to-date higher educational institution. The paper is devoted on automation of related processes on the basis of a modern approach for integration of heterogeneous software systems. It presents the context, substance and objectives of a study related to the automated d...

The paper presents an approach towards project quality, aiming to reach a higher maturity level in the quality management of the finishing this year FETCH project (Future Education and Training in Computing: How to learn anytime anywhere) funded by the European Commission Lifelong Learning Programme. It describes the concept of this approach and th...

The evaluation of students’ satisfaction is a key indicator of the quality of learning. It allows the collection and analysis of the students' evaluation of the quality of courses and learning process in order to improve the quality. The paper examines the possibility for automated evaluation of student satisfaction in Moodle. The developed module...

Anime characters have transcended their traditional animation role, permeating entertainment, video games, and social media. Online platforms, including prominent blogs and forums, are filled with references and adaptations of these characters. This digital ubiquity has spurred creators to develop innovative storytelling methods through the interne...

The global obesity epidemic is a significant challenge to public health, necessitating innovative and personalized solutions. This paper presents Pondera, an innovative mobile app revolutionizing weight management by integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and multidimensional goal fulfilment analytics. Pondera distinguishes itself by supplying a...

The high performance of IoT technology in transportation networks has led to the increasing adoption of Internet of Vehicles (IoV) technology. The functional advantages of IoV include online communication services, accident prevention, cost reduction, and enhanced traffic regularity. Despite these benefits, IoV technology is susceptible to cyber-at...

Despite the wide acceptance of blended learning in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) worldwide, the issue of monitoring its implementation has been little addressed in the literature. The paper presents the results of the first stage of the study for the development and implementation of tools for monitoring the degree of use of blended learning...

This paper presents a comprehensive approach to translating natural language queries into PROLOG queries, enabling effective interaction with knowledge bases implemented in PROLOG. The system is composed of multiple Python scripts that manage various stages of the translation and querying process: input processing, query translation, PROLOG interac...

The increasingly widespread use of software solutions to digitize training and administrative processes in educational institutions of all levels increases the interest in offering models and software tools for measuring the level of digitalization of educational institutions. The article presents a formal model for evaluating the digital level of...

Due to the fact that Agile is gaining popularity as it enables teams to respond rapidly to changing requirements, enhance collaboration and deliver high-quality software products, ensuring code quality and security becomes paramount. This article is devoted to principles, practices, and benefits of Agile methodology, primary objectives of code qual...

In recent years, digital transformation has taken a central place in scientific analysis and practical developments. The article examines issues related to cloud migration, cloud service models and the advantages and disadvantages of cloud services. The analysis performed allows organizations to identify the sources of potential technical challenge...

Globally, the number of online courses offered as electronic versions of conventional learning courses has increased annually over the past decade. A critical variable for measuring the success or failure of these courses is student satisfaction. This paper presents a study which aims to investigate the students' satisfaction with the quality of an...

The paper presents the development of a web-based academic platform designed to discuss and find answers to academic questions, where users can create topics in various admin-approved categories, comment on topics created by other users, and customize their profile with a biography, photo, and free text description. To achieve this goal, the logica...

Among the most vital key performance indicators for the quality of educational services offered by higher education institutions (HEIs) are students' retention and success rate. The number of trained students is also decisive for financing HEIs. Therefore, HEIs leaders need continuous access to data on current students in aggregated form to help th...

An interactive analytical dashboard that analyzes students’ facial expressions during online lectures is crucial for digital learning platforms. Often, the management of educational institutions needs to analyze individual students’ emotions during online classes to improve the teaching standards. However, given occluded facial data, this becomes a...

This research paper focuses on studying students' perspectives on the quality of online course developed to support traditional face-to-face learning, specifically exploring their satisfaction levels. The study aims to identify the factors influencing student satisfaction and their impact on academic performance. A questionnaire was developed, cons...

Due to the great importance of student satisfaction with educational services, many HEIs conduct annual surveys. Analyzing the results of such surveys, tracking trends, and comparing the evaluation results to help governing bodies make data-driven decisions to take measures to improve the quality of courses is time-consuming and requires a lot of m...

Digital watermarking methods have exceptional significance in protecting the copyright and authenticating multimedia security. An adaptive blind color image watermarking approach using a binary robust invariant scalable key (BRISK) features based on convolutional neural network and contourlet transform is designed. Arnold cat transform encrypts the...

Facial expression analysis is one of the most important tools for behavior interpretation and emotion modeling in Intelligent Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Although humans can easily interpret facial emotions, computers have great difficulty doing so. Analyzing changes and deformations in the face is one of the methods through which machines ca...

The provision of educational services with high quality is a matter of concern to all stakeholders in higher education (academic staff, administration, students, etc.). According to many researchers, student satisfaction is an indicator of service quality in higher education institutions (HEIs), and evaluating the quality of educational and adminis...

The success of a business organization on its path to digital transformation depends on the success of the various stages of the project in order to adopt the selected digital business solutions. The success of this project is determined to a large extent by identifying and monitoring critical success factors (CSFs) for these stages. Based on the s...

The market for new students is highly competitive. For this reason, higher education institutions (HEIs) can no longer rely on traditional strategies to hit enrolment goals. HEIs leadership must leverage new approaches, tools and skills to optimize the enrolment process, monitor the student enrolment campaign and improve marketing strategies to att...

Student success rate is a significant indicator of the quality of the educational services offered at higher education institutions (HEIs). It allows students to make their plans to achieve the set goals and helps teachers to identify the at-risk students and make timely interventions. University decision-makers need reliable data on student succes...

Nowadays, social networking is becoming a more and more powerful tool for students for communication, sharing of information and discussions on various topics. The study presented in this article investigates the extent to which teachers from different European countries use social networking sites in their teaching practice for different purposes...

This chapter aims to explore the human attitude towards the use of IT in education, especially teacher attitudes towards the use of social media in teaching practice. The study is based on a survey questionnaire, which aims to investigate to what extent and for what purposes teachers from different countries from all over the world use social netwo...

The objective evaluation of qualitative indicators requires the extraction and processing of huge amounts of data. The paper aims to propose a model for extracting values of quantitative indicators to a quality evaluation system with the help of natural language analysis. It presents an algorithm and the development of a software module, which use...

Nowadays, data analytics tools play an important role in the improvement and the optimization of processes in different business areas. The wide range of the collected data has led to increased interest in the analysis of data to support data-driven decision making at all levels of educational institutions. In this regard, many companies, organizat...

The road to the digitalization of schools is long and requires investment in digital technologies, equipment and teacher professional development. The European Union recognizes the significance of the digitalization of schools and encourages the development of digitally mature schools with a high level of ICT integration in school management and ed...

The large volumes of data used today have motivated research and development in various disciplines to extract valuable information for its analysis to solve problems. In recent years, data extraction and analysis at higher education institutions (HEIs) has become increasingly important. HEIs are looking for solutions that allow them to extract dat...

The paper presents a methodology and an application framework (PUAnalyzeThis) that makes use of MeaningCloud API to automatically extract entities, concepts, relations, etc. and calculate scores and grades based on their relevance to a preliminary created topics graph. These topic graphs are either to be created by the teacher or automatically gene...

Nowadays, schools use many information systems to automate their activities for different stakeholders' groups-learning management systems, student diary, library systems, digital repositories, financial management and accounting systems, document processing systems, etc. The huge amount of data generated by the users of these systems, led to incre...

The paper presents a chatbot oriented linguistic approach and a software prototype which addresses the need of delivering learning content based on queries in Bulgarian language. Two distinct database query generation approaches are presented, discussed and implemented. Pros and cons for each of them are discussed.

As an essential aspect in the work of the European Union (EU), gender equality is integrated into all EU policies. A number of the EU's key priorities for the development of universities in Europe also concern issues related to gender equality. Some higher education institutions have achieved significant results in this area by introducing gender d...

As a result of the dynamic development of Information Technologies and the shortened appearance cycle of newer and newer versions of the studied software instruments, learners and teachers encounter a significant problem: learning content and acquired knowledge become outdated too quickly. Forming Computational Thinking in IT training would help st...

The paper presents an approach to learning and an environment for working with a hybrid visual-text programming language with a special emphasis on the training for future programmers at an early stage. An overview of other visual programming environments and languages is made and the advantages of the hybrid visual-text approach offered in this ar...

Contemporary education has been experiencing difficulties because of the fast changing content, especially in the field of Information Technology. In this regard, education institutions have seen an increasing emphasis on the role of computational thinking. Forming Computational Thinking in IT training would help to use fewer efforts and less time...

Статията представя резултатите от изследване за приложение на фрейми за представяне на знания и процеси в е-обучението. Класическата нотация на фреймови модели е доразвита в т.нар акумулативен фреймов модел. Представени са създадени на негова база информационни и компютърни модели и софтуерни средства за извличан и агрегиране на данни. Обсъдени са...

The basic workflows in the field of Criminal Investigations in Bulgaria which are incorporated in a proprietary information system are presented in this paper. Leading role in the investigation is the prosecutor, but in other countries, this role is more or less consistent with the role of the investigator. EMS monitors the operation of the process...

Many educational institutions use a large number of information systems to automate their activities for different stakeholders’ groups – learning management systems, student diary, library system, digital repositories, management system, etc. This leads to a significant increase in the volume and variety of data that can be captured, stored, and h...

Educational data mining helps the educational institutions to perform effectively and efficiently by exploiting the data related to all its stakeholders. It can help the at-risk students, develop recommendation systems and alert the students at different levels. It is beneficial to the students, educators and authorities as a whole. Deep learning h...

The paper introduces a hybrid model for quality evaluation of the educational process in high school, based on a set of qualitative and quantitative indicators. The model overcomes the subjectivity of external evaluation by using a relatively small number, clear and objectively measurable criteria for different types of indicators, divided into 12...

Social networking is becoming a more powerful tool for students for communication, information sharing, and discussions. This paper presents a study, based on a survey questionnaire, which aims to investigate to what extent and for what purposes teachers from different countries from all over the world use social networking in their teaching practi...

The paper presents a proprietary software system for Modelling of Processes for Data Accumulation and Synthesis in Higher Education, which is designed and developed to overcome the lack of tools suitable enough for work-flows manipulation in the field of Higher Education (HE). The system allows modelling processes in the form of "workflows", accumu...

Gender equality (GE), besides being a fundamental human right, is essential to achieve peaceful societies, with full human potential and sustainable development. The GE Index (GEI) of European Institute for GE (EIGE) shows that advances in GE are still moving at a snail's pace. According to GEI Bulgaria has been progressing towards GE at a slower p...

The COVID-19 Pandemic is the most serious ongoing pandemic around the world. Every sector, as well as the education sector, is being hampered by this pandemic. The COVID-19 forces many universities all over the world to adopt online learning, remote work, and other activities to reduce the spread of the virus. This situation has led to an increased...

Learning Analytics (LA) and tools for intelligent analysis of data accumulat-ed in the information systems used in higher education institutions (HEIs) al-low quality experts to increase the effectiveness of processes for monitoring, quality assurance and evaluation of training. The paper presents LA model and a correspondent software tool designed...

The paper presents a study in the field of m-learning with interactive learning content. The approach used is to integrate a system (plug-in), which converts learning activities into EPUB learning content, suitable for usage and tracking on any mobile device, with an existing e-learning environment, full with learning courses. Therefore, a plug-in...

The paper presents a study in the field of gamification of learning, in particular – in structural gamification. The four-stages cyclic (Learning – Evaluation – Rewarding – Ranking) gamification learning model is proposed. The used gamified elements (level, story/history, challenge, team, time frame, game progress, status (avatar), bonus, badge, re...

The paper presents the main concepts of an approach which can be used in a corporate environment for Adaptive education of employees. A formal model is proposed to facilitate adaptivity in terms of pursuing personal and corporate goals. Software prototypes, which prove the applicability of the model, are presented and discussed.

In recent years, there is a growing interest in learning analytics tools and their impact on student success. As a result, many higher education institutions have been deploying Learning Analytics (LA) tools. Although the research in the field is still at a relatively early stage of development, there are a number of good practices in the literatur...

Contemporary higher educational institutions are collecting huge amounts of data about students and their results. The wide range of data has led to increased interest in the analysis of data to support data-driven decision making at all levels of educational institutions. The paper is devoted to the emerging field of Learning Analytics that has be...

Learning Analytics plays an important role in the improvement of the global quality and efficiency of learning and teaching. The wide range of the collected data has led to increased interest in the analysis of data to support data-driven decision making at all levels of educational institutions. In this regard, many companies, organizations and hi...

Most of the educational institutes nowadays benefited from the hidden knowledge extracted from the datasets of their students, instructors and educational settings. The education system has gone through a paradigm shift from traditional system to smart learning environments and from teacher-centric system to context-aware any time anywhere student-...

The paper presents a comprehensive approach for quality evaluation of higher education through data accumulation and aggregation. The proposed approach is tested for data accumulation and aggregation for NEAA criteria systems in Bulgaria. For this purpose, the criteria systems that this agency applies for quality evaluation in higher education are...

The paper presents a part of a study on the application of frames for the representation of knowledge and processes in programming training. The proposed accumulative frame model serves as a basis for automation of e-learning and e-training activities by the implementation of tools for extraction, aggregation and accumulation of data and knowledge...

This chapter aims to explore the human attitude towards the use of IT in education, especially teacher attitudes towards the use of social media in teaching practice. The study is based on a survey questionnaire, which aims to investigate to what extent and for what purposes teachers from different countries from all over the world use social netwo...

Nowadays, social networking is becoming a more and more powerful tool for students for communication, sharing of information and discussions on various topics. The study presented in this article investigates the extent to which teachers from different European countries use social networking sites in their teaching practice for different purposes...

This chapter aims to explore the human attitude towards the use of IT in education, especially teacher attitudes towards the use of social media in teaching practice. The study is based on a survey questionnaire, which aims to investigate to what extent and for what purposes teachers from different countries from all over the world use social netwo...

The paper presents a study in the field of m-learning with interactive learning content. The approach used is to integrate a system (plug-in), which converts learning activities into EPUB learning content, suitable for usage and tracking on any mobile device, with an existing e-learning environment, full with learning courses. Therefore a plug-in f...

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The wide range of data produced by participants in learning processes has led to increased interest in the collection and analysis of data to support data-driven decision making at all levels of educational institutions. The paper is devoted to the emerging field of Learning Analytics that has been researched to identify all stakeholders and their...

The paper presents a part of a study conducted for the needs of e-learning on the application of frames for representation of knowledge and processes in training on a particular subject domain. As a result of the study the classical notion of the frame models is developed further and the so-called accumulative frame model is proposed. The main rati...

The paper presents a study in the area of Learning Analytics-a scientific field that is still in a relatively early stage of study in Bulgaria. The study aims to offer, develop and test software tools for Learning Analytics that will improve the learning outcomes in the field of higher education. Using data mining methods for analysis the data prod...

This paper describes a workflow based approach towards workplace education. Proprietary workflow description and execution environments are used to create a certain application. In order to overcome existing difficulties and functional deficiency in reviewed systems and approaches, we designed a specific modular structure, which contains six module...

A software environment CumuFormo for designing prototypes of frames and instances of frames with slots of different types is introduced. CumuFormo supports different databases and facilitates modeling of pedagogical scenarios in the form of e-learning workflows. The software tool Alpaca and a workflow interpreter, named EMS, are used in the develop...