Application of a Force-Directed Graph Drawing Algorithm for the Analysis of Curricula of Educational Programs of Higher Education

DOI: https://doi.org/10.25559/SITITO.019.202301.104-116

Abstract

The work is devoted to the development of an approach to the analysis of curricula of educational programs of higher education in the context of the current federal state educational standards in terms of achieving the declared learning outcomes formulated in the form of a set of competencies. This approach may prove useful for developing automated tools for assessing the quality of educational programs, as well as their comparative analysis.We propose a model for representing the curriculum in the form of a simple weighted undirected graph based on the competence-based approach. We propose an approach to the visualization of the graph representation of the curriculum based on the use of a force-directed graph drawing algorithm, which ensures achieving maximum visibility. We propose an approach to determine the interdisciplinary links of educational units of the curriculum based on their total number of credits and the competencies they are involved in. The resulting visual representation of interdisciplinary connections helps to better understand the structure of the curriculum, identify disciplines with the maximum number of interdisciplinary connections, and also decompose the plan into clusters of the most interconnected disciplines. We propose options for defining integral characteristics of graph representations of curricula, based on which the curricula can be evaluated, as well as a comparative analysis of the corresponding educational programs can be performed. As examples, we consider the curricula for the of bachelor programs majoring in 09.03.01 "Computer Science and Computer Engineering" and 09.03.03 "Applied Computer Science ", implemented at the Institute of Space and Information Technology of Siberian Federal University.


Author Biographies

Tatyana Victorovna Zykova, Siberian Federal University

Associate Professor of the Chair of Applied Mathematics and Computer Security, School of Space and Information Technology, Cand. Sci. (Phys.-Math.), Associate Professor

Alexey Alexandrovich Kytmanov, Siberian Federal University

Head of the Chair of Applied Mathematics and Computer Security, School of Space and Information Technology, Dr. Sci. (Phys.-Math.), Associate Professor

Mikhail Valerianovich Noskov, Siberian Federal University

Professor of the Chair of Applied Mathematics and Computer Security, Head of the Scientific and Educational Laboratory of E-learning Methodology, School of Space and Information Technology, Dr. Sci. (Phys.-Math.), Professor

Evgenii Alexandrovich Khalturin, Siberian Federal University

Assistant of the Chair of of Information Systems and Technologies, School of Space and Information Technology

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Published
2023-03-30
How to Cite
ZYKOVA, Tatyana Victorovna et al. Application of a Force-Directed Graph Drawing Algorithm for the Analysis of Curricula of Educational Programs of Higher Education. Modern Information Technologies and IT-Education, [S.l.], v. 19, n. 1, p. 104-116, mar. 2023. ISSN 2411-1473. Available at: <http://sitito.cs.msu.ru/index.php/SITITO/article/view/882>. Date accessed: 09 sep. 2025. doi: https://doi.org/10.25559/SITITO.019.202301.104-116.
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Issue
Vol 19 No 1 (2023): Modern Information Technologies and IT-education
Section
Educational resources and best practices of IT Education
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