DESIGNING MODERN INFORMATICS EDUCATION FOR FUTURE MANAGERS AND ADVANCED USERS ACCORDING TO THEIR KNOWLEDGE BASE

The main question we are dealing with is how to teach/educate the future managers – advanced users of business informatics, ICT and information systems. As a very important step in determining the content and method of teaching we consider an evaluation of the knowledge base of students who enter the first year at the Faculty of Economics Technical University of Košice. In the first seminar in subject called Informatics I students fill in questionnaires which are focused on their general knowledge of informatics/computer science and basic terms of IS. In the paper we present evaluation of our questionnaire survey in the period 2003-2014. Conclusions formulated in the paper are directly relevant for teaching realized on the Faculty of Economics, Technical University Kosice. In the process of questionnaire creation we drew from generally valid documents for secondary schools in Slovakia. In the sample of respondents there were mostly graduates from Eastern Slovakia Region therefore this allows us to assume that knowledge base and ICT competences on the other faculties especially in our region with non informatics focus would copy the described trends. We also present our innovative manner of informatics education based on modeling, simulation and on a well known opinion that “no kind of teaching can replace the personal experience”. As a dominant form we use problem-oriented project teaching. Students find themselves in a position of a manager of a virtual company, at project of specifying users’ requirements The paper deals with the experience in teaching, we present recommended structure of the user requirements project and we also discuss the body of knowledge and methods which have been implemented into the subject Informatics II. In the proposed innovative way of teaching we are trying to transform solving problem process into an active process of cognition.