Methodology

The aim of Output III is to propose courses to the prospective Study programme on IT Law, IT Security, Right to Privacy and Personal Data Protection. In order to come to a list of proposed courses, the results and recommendations form Output I were used.

Namely, for the purposes of Output III, the aspects related to 6 new policy areas under the Digital Market 2015 elaborated in Output I and used in the questionnaire for employers and the questionnaire for students and professors in Output I, were grouped in 7 chapters according to the subject matter:

 

  • General Data Protection Regulation and Personal Data Protection
  • Security of data processing
  • Security of networks and information systems
  • e-Privacy
  • Rules and Regulation related to ICT
  • Cloud Computing
  • Big data and open data

 

The partners in the Erasmus+ project worked on each chapter as an individual document. The tasks of the partner institutions in Output III was to assess whether each of the offered aspect shall be developed into individual course or in some cases several aspects shall be combined into a single course. Such assessment was done per each aspect. The assessment was commenced based on research and expertise of the partner institutions.

The assessment per each aspect consists of the following:

 

  • Course objectives and learning outcomes – what skills the students will develop within this course
  • Course content/content of the different aspects
  • Notes/ is it a stand-alone aspect or it shall be connected to other aspects
  • Relevant web links or references

 

In the field  ”Course objectives and learning outcomes – what skills the students will develop within this course” the partner institutions of Output III offer a general input of the desired skills the students shall acquire upon completing the course that contains this aspect. In this regard they have taken into consideration the results of the Study (Output I) where the skills of the employees were assessed that will be potentially dealing with the new obligations derived from the relevant new EU policies under Digital Market 2015 effective as of 2018.

In the field “Course content/content of the different aspects”, the partners offer information about all the issues that need to be addressed under the given course. These issues were cross-referenced with the new obligations for employers to be imposed with the relevant new EU policies under Digital Market 2015 effective as of 2018, described in Output I.

In the field” Notes/ is it a stand-alone aspect or it shall be connected to other aspects” the partners suggest if the analyzed aspect is to be developed into a stand-alone course or not. In case the analyzed aspect is not to be a stand-alone course, the partners suggest what other aspects the analyzed aspect can be connected in order to form a course. In cases where both options are suggested, in the final results the aspect in question is considered as a stand-alone and also as part of another course.

In the field “Relevant web links or references” the partners offered some recommended literature or useful links that they used for the research of Output III that can be of assistance for colleagues in further outputs that will be designing the courses (syllabus).

Based on the stated above, at the end of this document a list of courses is proposed. However, given the fact that around 33 different courses are proposed, it is necessary to make a list of top courses. The list of top courses is made based on mathematical calculation in order to provide objective results of Output III.

Namely, there is a list of courses proposed. Next to each of the courses the aspect or the aspects composing the course is/are outlined. Each aspect is derived either from the questionnaire for employers or the questionnaire for students and professors, or in most cases from both questionnaire. Therefore, to each of the aspects a certain percentage is attributed based on the percentages in the results of the questionnaires in Output I (provided in Annex I).

The first step in creating the list of top courses was to calculate the percentages of the aspects.

The percentages attributed to the aspects were as follows:

 

  • If the aspect was only in the questionnaire for students and professors, the percentage attributed to this aspect is then taken only from that questionnaire
  • If the aspect was only in the questionnaire for employers, the percentage attributed to this aspect is then taken only from that questionnaire
  • If the aspect was both in in the questionnaire for students and professors and in the questionnaire for employers, the percentage attributed to this aspect is then calculated as an average between the two (the two percentages are summed up and the result is divided by two).

 

The second step in creating the list of top courses was to calculate the percentages of the courses.

The percentages attributed to the courses were as follows:

 

  • If the course is based on an aspect that was suggested to be a stand-alone course, then the percentage of the course is equivalent to the percentage of the aspect
  • If the course is based on several aspects that were suggested to be connected in one course, then the percentage of the course is calculated as an average of the percentage of the aspects it is composed of (the percentages of the individual aspects are summed up and the result is divided by the number of aspects included in the course).

 

The last step was to make the top list based on the ranking of the courses (based on the percentages).

Output III offers actually two top lists of courses. In the first list the courses were taken as advised by the partners in the list of recommended courses.  The second list is based on the alternatives. In the list of recommended courses in the column on notes, for some of the aspects the partners in Output III indicated that it can be both stand-alone and/or connected to another aspect. Thereby, the second top list presents the results of the alternative.

Fortunately, upon comparison of the results, it can be concluded that the top ranking courses remain the same. The results are absolutely the same from course No. 1 to course No. 7, whereas from course No.8 onwards, despite few changes in the positions, the courses that are in the top 18 are the same. No significant changes are noticed from course No. 18 to course No. 32/33, but given the fact that these courses will be recommended only as optional, their ranking is irrelevant to the list.

Based on this applied methodology, it can be concluded that Output III offers a consistent list of courses for the prospective Study programme on IT Law, IT Security, Right to Privacy and Personal Data Protection.