Report on the University Teacher Grant
1. Host institution
Thanks to the University Teaching grant, I was able to spend four months teaching at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (http://cs.elfak.ni.ac.yu/sr/index.html) at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering (http://www.elfak.ni.ac.yu/), the University of Niš, Serbia and Montenegro. Niš is my hometown, and I had completed my B.Eng., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering. This leave was an excellent opportunity for me to help the very same institution where I got my education.
Niš is the second largest city in Serbia, located 200 km south from Belgrade, the capital, with the population of 250,000 (http://www.nis.org.yu/index-e.html). The city is situated at the crossroads of the Balkan, connecting Asia to Europe, and is one of the oldest cities in the Balkans. The town was named after the Nišava River. Niš used to be the center of electronics industry. However, due to the war and the economic crisis during the 1990s, this industry barely exists at the moment. The unemployment rate is extremely high, and there is a general feeling of depression.
The Faculty of Electronics is one of the biggest schools within the University of Niš (http://www.junis.ni.ac.yu/). The faculty is fortunate to have a very nice building, which was completed in 1982. There is a lot of space, but the equipment is either quite old or missing. For example, there are only three computer labs with the total of around 30 machines for all the students. Staff machines are bought from research projects, and are generally satisfactory. The Library holdings are extremely limited, and most of the books are very old. There are no textbooks available in Serbian for most of the specialized courses. Approximately half of the students have computers at home, but the other half is only able to use PCs during the allocated lab times. Internet access is extremely slow.
The B.Eng. degree takes five years to complete, and the typical number of students entering the school each year is about 350. The first two years consist of mandatory courses for all students, such as mathematics, physics, computing and electronics. From year 3, students take specialized courses, and there are five specializations: Computer Science, Automatics, Electronics, Telecommunications and Industrial Electronics. I have taught two courses at year 4, for students specializing in Computer Science. The courses I taught were Databases and Artificial Intelligence. There were 50 students enrolled for the courses.
2. Teaching
I left New Zealand on February 19, 2003, and arrived to Serbia on the following day. It was a big surprise to see a lot of snow and experience temperatures significantly below zero! I was met by Prof Dr Slobodanka Djordjevic-Kajan, who is the leader of the Computer Graphics and GIS Lab (http://gislab.elfak.ni.ac.yu/). She gave me a ride from the Belgrade airport to Niš. Coming back to my home country was of course very emotional, since there have been many problems and turmoil since I left the country in 1994, and the current situation is far from being good.
The following day I went to
the school for the first time, to familiarize myself with the schedule and
learn about the students and the courses I was supposed to teach. There were
two lectures per week for each course: Monday 10-12 for Artificial
Intelligence, and Tuesday 10-12 for Databases. At the School of Electronic
Engineering there is only one data projector, but I was able to use it for my
lectures. Since I have developed some Powerpoint presentations before I left
New Zealand, it was a relief to be able to use them. The school also has a very
small number of OHPs, and most of the lecture rooms are to bright for OHPs to
be used. I have developed handouts for students, and the students appreciated
them a lot, since there are no textbooks available in Serbian for them to buy.
English textbooks are too expensive, and also difficult to get hold of.
Furthermore, the library is not adequate, as there are only very old books, and
a very limited number of them.
On the very first day at the University, I also had a meeting with the Dean of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Prof. Dr Gradomir Milovanovic. I used to be his student, so it was very nice to see him again and learn about the new developments at the school.
Most of my stay was devoted to teaching. I teach databases at the University of Canterbury, so the same course in Serbia required certain modifications. I have set up a Web site for the course, where all the relevant information was available to students (http://gislab.elfak.ni.ac.yu/baze). The lectures were based on “Fundamentals of Database Systems” by R. Elmasri and S. Navathe (Addison-Wesley, 3rd edition, 2000). I have developed a set of labs and tutorials to match the material I covered in lectures. The students had 4 tutorials, which covered conceptual database design using the EER model (Enhanced Entity-Relationship model). I have developed an assignment for students to do, which required them to develop a conceptual database design starting from given requirements. The students had four weeks to complete this assignment, and have done it well. I have also developed a series of five labs in which students practiced SQL, the Standard Query language in the context of the Oracle Database management system. Later on during the course, the students sat a lab test, 45 minutes long. The goal of this test was to evaluate students’ knowledge of SQL. I have installed two of my Intelligent Tutoring Systems on the server at the School. SQL-Tutor teaches SQL, while NORMIT teaches data normalization. Both areas are very important for databases. The students were given user accounts and passwords, which allowed them to use these Web-enabled systems from the university labs or from their homes. We have collected data on how the students used these systems, and I will analyze the data to check what they have learnt and how well the systems supported their learning. I have done similar analysis with students in New Zealand, so this is a rare opportunity to evaluate the systems with a different population of students. Finally, I have prepared exam questions, but have left Serbia before the exam, scheduled for July 7, 2003.
However, I have not taught Artificial Intelligence before, and that
course required a lot of planning and preparation. I have decided to base all
the lectures and labs on the Lisp programming language, one of the two commonly
used programming languages for such courses. There is a free academic version
of Allegro Common Lisp, and the students were also able to use the same version
on their home machines. A Web site was also developed for this course
(http://gislab.elfak.ni.ac.yu/vi). The Web site contains all the lecture
material, information about the assessment items, and grades. The lectures were
based on “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach”, the authors of which are
Stuart Russel and Peter Norvig (Prentice Hall, 1995). I have developed a set of
labs, in which students learnt the basics of Lisp and practiced the material
introduced in lectures. I have also developed two assignments, one on search
algorithms used in AI, and the other on developing knowledge bases. The
students were extremely interested in this fascinating filed, and many of them
have produced impressive solutions to the assignments. The final exam was held
on June 16th. I have managed to mark the exam before I left, and am
very pleased with the results.
I have sent ten textbooks from New Zealand that arrived in early March. I have donated these books to the library, with a requirement that they be available to students for short-term loan only. Additionally, I have also bough three monographs as gifts for the member of the Computer Graphics and GIS lab. Those books are relevant for the current research projects within the Lab. I have also bought a PC that I used at the school. At the end of my stay, I donated this computer to the school as well. The details of donations are also available on the Web site (http://gislab.elfak.ni.ac.yu/en/donations/amitrovic.htm).
I also gave a guest lecture to postgraduate students at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Niš on April 17, and to students taking an Artificial Intelligence course at the University of Belgrade on May 24, 2003.
3. Collaborating with academics in Serbia
I have collaborated with the members of the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department, as well as other academics from Niš and other universities in Serbia. The head of CSE department in Niš is Professor Milena Stankovic. I had talked to her regularly during my stay in Niš about the courses, assessment items and other relevant issues. The CSE Department has changed a lot, as there are still a lot of people leaving Yugoslavia due to the unstable political and economical situation. However, it was nice to see that my ex-colleagues still manage to do very interesting work. There are many young people now working as research and/or teaching assistants, and I had the opportunity to talk with many of them about their research.
Furthermore, I have learnt about new developments in the Computer Graphics and GIS Lab, a member of which I had been before coming to Canterbury. I have been in contact with the people in the Lab all the time since moving to New Zealand, and we did publish a lot of joint papers, but this visit gave me an opportunity to learn about new application first handedly. I was involved in several of their projects, and commented on the work they were doing at the time.
I was invited to give a talk at the 9th YU-INFO 2003 conference (http://www.elitesecurity.org/tema/21299), one of the largest informatics' manifestations in Yugoslavia, which was held on the Kopaonik Mountain from March 10th until March 14th. My invited talk covered the use of computers in education, and especially the effects of individualized instruction on learning effectiveness. During the talk, I also gave short demonstration of two intelligent tutoring systems developed by my research group. The talk attracted a lot of attention, and I have been approached by many attendees during the rest of the conference. After the conference, I have sent demo versions of my educational software to several people I met during the conference. The conference was a good opportunity to learn about the current state of research and development in Serbia.
On the way back from the conference, we have heard that the Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic has been assassinated. The state of emergency was declared immediately. It was a sad time, as the late prime minister was one of the true leaders and had won the trust of the people.
There is a lot of work going on at the moment in Serbia on restructuring the University system and the degrees. I was asked several times to talk about the tertiary education system in New Zealand. On March 27, 2003, the CSE department organized a special meeting at which I talked about the degrees offered by the University of Canterbury. The academics were especially interested in the structure of our three-year degrees, and the planning advice that students get while selection courses. It seems very likely that the current 5-year degree would be reduced to a 3-year degree in Niš, so people were interested to learn about my experiences from New Zealand.
I have also cooperated with Dr Goran Djordjevic, the leader of the Robotics lab (http://robot.elfak.ni.ac.yu) at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering. I gave a talk for the member of this research group on March 31, describing the area of Artificial Intelligence in Education, with demonstrations of my educational systems. We have identified one particular area of interest for all of us, and agreed to start a joint project to develop an educational system.
I gave a talk at the University of Niš on April 9, 2003, on the current trends in intelligent educational systems. The talk was well received, and there were a lot of questions on my research, as well as about the educational system in New Zealand.
During my stay in Niš, I also examined two Diploma theses, and participated in the oral examinations. It is mandatory to have an oral examination for all theses in Serbia, and it is a very nice opportunity for a candidate to present the work done and answer specific questions. The first thesis was done by Adis Terzic, and covered the application of description logics to knowledge bases and was examined on April 8th. The second examination was held on May 28, 2003, and Bratislav Predic described his research on Web-base Geographical Information Systems. I have also been involved in the supervision of one MSc project and one PhD project at the CSE department, both in the area of Geographical Information Systems.
At the end of May, I traveled north to give a series of talks and lectures in Belgrade and Novi Sad. On May 22, I gave a talk on my research to the members of SMEITS (the union of engineers and technicians of Serbia, http://www.hvacyu.com/glavni.htm). The following day, I went to the University of Novi Sad and gave a talk there. The following day I came back to Belgrade, to visit Dr Vladan Devedzic, the leader of the Good Old AI Group, School of Business Administration at the University of Belgrade (http://galeb.etf.bg.ac.yu/~devedzic/). Vladan’s group includes 19 people from Belgrade and other cities, mostly postgraduates who are interested in Artificial Intelligence. I talked about my research group, the research we do, the problems we face and many organizational issues. There was a lot of interest for joint research, and we have already done some interesting work while I was in Serbia.
Other professional activities I was involved with while being in Serbia include reviewing papers for several international conferences and for ETRAN 2003, a local conference devoted to all areas of Electronics and Computing.
Finally, I also participated in a workshop organized by the members of the TEMPUS project on improving teaching. The workshop was held at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Niš, on June 18, 2003. This project encompasses several universities from Serbia, Macedonia, Germany, and Greece. I was impressed both by the quality of English and the quality of presentations. Most of the presentations were about educational systems developed at the participating institutions for helping students to learn. I also gave a short presentation about the laboratories I have developed for the database course while being in Niš.
4.
The Rotary Club of Niš
My host club was the Rotary club of Niš,
district 2480. Before leaving New Zealand, I had received no information about
my host Rotarian advisor, or about the host club. However, on the first day I
went to the university, learned about a Rotarian who worked there, Mr Darko
Mitic, and managed to meet him. Therefore, I learnt that the club met on Monday
evenings, and went to my first meeting on February 24, 2003. I was able to go
to most of the meeting during my stay in Niš. I only missed two meetings while
I had the flu, and also two meetings while I was away 
from Niš, giving
presentations in other cities.
My host Rotary Club is very
different from my sponsor club. It is much smaller, with about 40 members (who
are much younger on average than people in my sponsor club). The club was
re-established in 1996, as the original club, which was chartered in 1936
ceased to exist during the communist times. I was able to participate in
several of their activities. The project I enjoyed most was organized by
Rotaract on April 10, 2003. It was an exhibition of art and craft produced by
children in special schools, or associations of people suffering from various
diseases.
I gave a talk at my host club on May 19, 2003. I talked about my sponsor club and my involvement in it. I also talked about New Zealand and our experiences since we immigrated at the end of 1994. Finally, I talked about my research and my work at the University of Niš.
I have also given two interviews, one for the local newspaper (Narodne novine 21-22.June 2003) and for the local TV station (TV5 on June 17.6.2003).
5. Coming back to New Zealand
I
left Niš on June 20th, and spent one night in Belgrade, as I had an
early flight on the 21st. On my way back, I went to the USA to
attend the User Modeling conference. This year, the conference was held in
Johnstown. It is a prestigious conference dealing with all aspects of
personalizing interactions of human with computers. I had a full paper accepted
for presentation in the last session of the conference. My presentation
attracted a lot of attention, and I was asked to be a guest editor for the User
Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction for a special issue devoted to the
student modeling approach that my research group uses. The conference was a
great opportunity to meet with the top people in the area. I returned to New
Zealand on June 29th.
6. Experiences and Opinions
Overall, I am extremely satisfied by my stay in Serbia. I had a wonderful opportunity to help my hometown and my home university. I enjoyed working with the student there. The students differ from students in New Zealand. Some of the reasons for this difference are cultural. For example, the students were quite reluctant to interact during lectures, although I have tried to involve them in several ways. When I persisted, they would answer my questions adequately, but still were not comfortable. The students are also not used to having deadlines during the year. There are assignments as such, but students are not required to submit their solutions by a specific time. Furthermore, there are many exam periods during the year, and student are allowed to sit the same exam several times. All of these, plus the fact that the crisis has also had effects on the universities, result in the fact that many students have exams to pass from the previous year, and therefore cannot put adequate effort in the courses they are currently taking. However, The quality of the students is the same as in New Zealand. I have enjoyed marking the exam scripts and assignment solutions, as there were many creative approaches and very impressive solutions developed by the students. I have also been able to cooperate with my colleagues from various universities in Serbia. Finally, I have met many Rotarians in Niš, and learnt about the activities of Rotary clubs in Serbia.
In the
conclusion, I would like to thank Rotary Foundation for giving me this
wonderful opportunity. Additional photos are available at http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~tanja/study-leave.html
Dr Antonija Mitrovic 10
July 2003
Senior Lecturer
Computer Science Department, University
of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New
Zealand
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~tanja/
tanja@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz
Home address:
213 Maidstone Road, Avonhead,
Christchurch, New Zealand
Person who supervised my teaching:
Prof Dr Slobodanka Djordjevic-Kajan
Faculty Of Electronic Engineering
Beogradska 14, 18000 Nis, Serbia and
Montenegro
sdjordjevic@elfak.ni,ac.yu