Why do I think that I am a good candidate for the dean position?

Primary for me is the vision that FIT BUT can and should be a top research faculty that excels in research and teaching, has a strong position in basic and applied research projects, actively cooperates with foreign countries and industry, and behaves fairly, openly, and accommodating inside and outside.

The dean should – in my opinion – have a long-term history of conduct that is consistent with the main vision he sets for his term of office and should have strong personal experiences in the areas that are crucial for the vision: research, teaching, projects, cooperation with industry, cooperation with abroad, leadership, … While no one is likely to fully cover all these areas, and the dean should onboard skilled vice-deans strong in their respective areas, the direction and final decisions are up to the dean. Unless the dean has his own, long experience, accompanied by "sweat and blood", in the relevant areas, there will always be a high chance of inappropriate decision-making and compromises that can jeopardize accomplishing the vision

Moreover, I believe that it is very important if the dean ha personal, long-term experiences from outside the FIT and outside the BUT so that he does not evaluate everything narrowly with the same optics. I truly believe that staying outside of FIT continuously for a year or more gives one a significantly different perspective. It is also very important that the dean has contacts and is known outside the BUT at important institutions both in the Czech Republic and abroad.

I think that in the above-mentioned areas, I have managed to achieve very good results and gain a lot of experience that I can offer to the faculty, namely:

In research, I have co-authored a large number of publications at top conferences and in respected journals, had invited talks at top conferences, and even organized such conferences. Moreover, I have also founded the very active research group VeriFIT.
• I have been the principal (co-)investigator in a number of national as well as international basic as well as applied research projects, including intense participation on preparation and running of several projects of faculty scope, in some cases also involving other faculties of the BUT or from MU, CTU, or Charles University.
• I have actively cooperated with the industry (Red Hat, Honeywell, and Oracle Labs, among others, can confirm).
• As for long-term work abroad, I spent 2 continuous years working at the top LIAFA laboratory, now IRIF, in Paris (plus a number of other working stays of up to a month, including block teaching or participation in the international board of the doctoral school at TU Vienna).
• I have rich experience from the evaluation of projects or individuals in the Czech Republic and Europe (including 4 years as a member of the GAČR panel, which led, among other things, to meeting a number of leading researchers from various Czech institutions).
• Finally, I also have experience from administration – as a vice-dean, I can perhaps say that I have, among other things, contributed a lot to the highest possible evaluation of the faculty in the last evaluation by the International Panel within Module 3 M17+, of course with the help of many other people and based on the excellent results of researchers from the faculty, or I have also significantly contributed to that after a long time not only journal publications but also excellent conference publications are recognized at the BUT level.

At the same time, I believe I am a good teacher. I enjoyed teaching (even when I started teaching in the final year of my engineering degree - yes, it worked ☺) and still do. I have experience with both theoretical and applied courses, with major modifications and introductions of courses and disciplines, and, finally, I have achieved quite positive results in student surveys despite the fact that none of the courses I am in are exactly easy to pass. I support honest and hard-working students, even if they are not top-notch, and I am able to do a lot for them even at the cost of my discomfort.

I think I am also quite honest and open. I do not try to tell people what they want to hear and then do something else. I do not prefer behind-the-scenes negotiations. I do not think that public meetings are for communicating a result agreed in advance by someone in the background. I am not afraid of debate. I am used to expressing my opinions even if they do not win and not stoning my opponents afterwards.

I am willing to look for paths even where it seems there are none (maybe it corresponds with my passion for freeride skiing ☺).

In areas that are not exactly my cup of coffee, I can look for colleagues who are better in the area. I can consult them and accept their advice, but I am also able to learn (even in an area where I am very little talented and which was previously completely unimaginable for me, such as dance ☺).

The election program

We are a demanding and high-quality faculty. We need to maintain this situation and, of course, work on further improvements in some areas.

Excellence in research

• What gets measured/evaluated gets better.
  • Continuously look for what to measure/evaluate (and then support) in the matter of science.
• Maintain the quality of PhD/doc/prof.
  • The profile of our scientists is getting better, and we do not plan to further tighten the criteria. We plan to fine-tune the criteria, e.g. for applied results, however, there is no room to lower/cancel them.
• Great science grows out of solid science.
  • Support not only the excellent but also the solid science, especially when trying to improve (e.g. taking into account also rejected A*/A/D1/Q1 papers).
• We need to prepare a new evaluation of science ("bobři") with respect to quality for wages calculation.
  • In addition to the base evaluation, go on highlighting and awarding excellent publications and applied results.
• A high quality scientific board.
  • Heavyweights in research, not in politics, who are not afraid to say unpleasant things and push us further.
• An emphasis on hiring the best people possible.
  • As open, advertised, and thorough selection processes as possible.
• Continue in our efforts to recognize conference papers as important research results.
  • At all levels - inside the BUT and outside, coordination with other similar departments using personal contacts.

High quality teaching

In general, the education at FIT is demanding but has a rather high quality. I do not see the need to tighten up. On the other hand, we want to identify problematic areas and improve them.

• Careful monitoring and consideration of the quality of teaching.
  • Deepen and cultivate student evaluation of teaching (including, for example, the possibility of involving students themselves in producing their version of a summary of the student feedback on individual courses).
  • Where real problems are identified, seriously oversee their resolution.
  • Documenting and making as accessible as possible the real actions taken and the adjustments made (not necessarily only in an official report, but, e.g. in the form of a record of changes in the course - a kind of "changelog", a short mention by the lecturer at the beginning of the next course run, etc.).
  • Seek ways of evaluating, highlighting, and rewarding quality teaching (as in science).
• Fair, humane, and effective communication between students and teachers.
  • Not just formal minutes and reports but informal discussions.
  • A Discord server run by students (or another platform chosen by students) with a known student administrator, but not allowed to exclusively disseminate facts that would cause a major advantage - i.e. everything essential students will also learn from the web and official channels.
  • Support for unified signposts/concentrators for course information.
  • Emphasis on publishing deadlines and rules as early as possible, compensating for changes with tolerance.
  • Regular designated time (weekly, fortnightly?) for the dean and selected Vice-Deans to meet with students (e.g. in "Kachnička") to discuss anything.
• Serious exploration of interest in more Master's programs and, if interest is demonstrated, maximum effort to introduce them.
• Efforts to introduce student "teaching assistants" (TAs).
  • Quite common, e.g. at FI MU.
  • Emphasis on using top students, carefully guided (preparation, supervision, etc.).
  • Use for at least some forms of teaching.
• Consider also the possibility of teaching by quality lecturers.
  • Not everyone "sees" themselves in research, but they can be an excellent teacher.
• Identify and address weaknesses and bottlenecks in FIT teaching.
  • Initiate a review of courses, course content, and forms of teaching, including methods of testing.
  • Search for an appropriate form of reflection upon the latest current advances in AI.
  • Spreading awareness that neither the guarantor nor the department "own" any course and that the guarantor can be changed, although this should be a very, very rare and carefully negotiated step.
• Promoting recordings and online learning.
  • Continuous support and improvement of the availability of recordings (notifying teachers of the possibility of making the recordings available, playback without downloading, etc.).
  • Modernization of A/V technology (more robustness, automation of stream triggering, etc.).
  • Emphasis on responsiveness and friendliness of technical support.
• Revision of available study materials.
  • Support for updates and improvements of slides and study materials.
  • Motivation to create training materials (solved exercises, etc. - see, e.g., TIN).
  • Simpler rules lead to fewer exceptions and bureaucracy.
• Information system.
  • Primarily support the development of the BUT IS and only build small single-purpose applications on top of the API.
  • Larger custom modules of the information system or alternatives to the BUT IS should be built only if it turns out that it is not really possible to obtain the appropriate support at the BUT level even after the completion of the currently running development of the BUT IS.
  • For the convenience of academics, introduce support in the form of 1-2 information system "gurus" capable of individual training and assistance with IS setup.
• Simplification of rules and automation of the teaching agenda.
  • Simpler rules lead to fewer exceptions and bureaucracy.
• Exceptions should be the exception, not the rule, but …
  • Do not exclude exceptions and extraordinary solutions if they are justified or there is simply a willingness to make them. (One example - what is valued more and will bring more to the faculty: a diploma thesis submitted on time, or a diploma thesis submitted later but leading to some award or subsequent publication?)
  • On the other hand, it must be clear that there is no right to an exception, and it is not possible to be "mad" at someone when one is not granted.
• Correct and constructive communication with the Rector's Office.
  • Less arguing: one can often reach some consensus.
  • Coordination with other faculties.
• Flexibility in teaching temporary courses.
  • Visits from abroad, from industry …
• Support for the possibility of taking courses from other faculties.
  • Keep on updating and expanding the offer.
• Emphasis on excellence does not mean pressure for more "throw-aways".
  • Primarily, it is about excellence in teaching methods.
  • Do not reduce demands on students but do also not purposely increase them.
  • Support not only top students but generally "honest" students.
• Maintaining the three exam terms.
  • Allowing for not attending some terms thus better self-planning of exams.
  • For more difficult courses, the unrestricted possibility of attending all 3 terms reduces stress.

Project support

• Awareness and motivation to submit projects.
  • Reflect appropriately on unsuccessful project submissions, especially prestigious ones (e.g. through the new evaluation systems (“bobři”)).
  • Motivate inter-group collaboration on projects across the faculty.
• Willingness to look for "pathways" to meet the tortuous rules of funders.
• Getting the project department (VCIT) as close as possible to researchers and their needs.
• Support for project managers able to take an active role in writing projects.
• Actively seeking representation in grant agency structures.
  • This is not about influencing in favour of specific projects but gaining experience (how projects are written, what is key, what is evaluated on projects and researchers, etc.) and also disseminating the practices of the field to these structures.

Internationalization

• Non-violent motivation to introduce at least a few more courses taught entirely or partially in English.
  • Especially at the MSc level, but at least one "major" course at the BSc level as well.
  • Seek space for students to choose which language to take the course in, while at the same time not overloading teachers - e.g. by not differentiating the quality and demands of teaching for Erasmus and regular students, so that the course is not taught three times.
• Look for ways to facilitate the involvement of foreign colleagues and PhD students in teaching and in the life of the faculty in general.
  • We need quality international colleagues and PhD students: they should, therefore, be able to participate fully in the life of the faculty.
• Support for sabbaticals.
• Motivation for postdoctoral stays abroad before joining the faculty.
  • Not a hard requirement, but it will be an openly advertised benefit to the selection process.
• Attempt to start combined student exchanges with foreign countries.
  • Partly in a company, partly at FIT (either in regular studies or at a summer school).
• Build the reputation of FIT and BUT internationally.
  • Travel, open doors, and present FIT to international researchers and students.
  • Consider the possibility of visiting professors.

Efficiency, economy, leadership

• Review the financial flows in the faculty.
  • Review where money flows and why from teaching, research, projects and suggest options for optimisation.
• Review the needs of academics and students and tailor faculty services accordingly.
  • Maybe sometimes fewer but better paid, active, and willing people.
  • Emphasis on automation of processes.
• Review room usage and look for opportunities for non-violent optimization.
  • Seek opportunities to improve classroom and teacher utilization that do not discourage students.
• Encourage seriously-meant interviews of leaders with the employees.
  • Setting goals, discussing whether or not they are being met, etc.
• Social safety for students and teachers.
  • Quality training, prevention of unwanted interactions, a trusted point of contact, and more open communication about the status and actions in this area.
  • Neither students nor staff should feel threatened.
• Support the students' union in its work.
  • Friendly communication, financial and spatial support, but perhaps also looking for ways to help the student union engage more students.
• Supporting the employees’ union in events organized for the employees.
  • Supporting prevention activities for the physical and mental health of the employees.
  • Support financially, in terms of room provision, etc.

Industry and external relations

• Building a portfolio of collaborating strong companies.
  • Emphasis on the development of collaborative contract and grant research.
  • Encouraging the assignment of interesting and topical corporate project practice topics, BSc and MSc thesis topics for students.
  • Possibility to involve experts from companies in teaching: stand-alone lectures, lectures at “Žijeme IT”, selected lectures in courses, or exceptionally whole courses (for the best partners in the long run, on special and in-demand topics, after careful consideration, possibly a test lecture, etc.).
  • Provision of space also for irregular, topical lectures.
  • Support and development of joint doctorates.
  • Opportunity for tailored teaching of the latest technologies for company employees if the company and teacher(s) are interested.
  • Cooperation on internationalization: combined internships.
  • Representation of industry also in the Scientific Board.
• Promoting entrepreneurship.
  • Offer guidance to students seeking commercialization (professional and business).
  • Motivational competitions.
  • Valuing commercialization (of students as well as employees) similarly to research achievements.
• External relations and PR.
  • Building FIT's reputation as a leader internally and externally.
  • Continuation of successful events on the FIT campus: summer school for girls, international summer school, “Žijeme IT”, Scientists' Night, etc. Efforts to motivate not yet-involved academics to join at least sometimes.
  • Increase efforts to attract quality applicants by strengthening cooperation with the secondary schools.
  • Starting up alumni links.
  • International campaigns for MITEN needs, double-degree, international summer schools, attracting quality international PhD students (it can work!).
  • Making FIT visible in the region: South-Moravian region, Brno, but also Královo Pole, etc.

Development and further use of the campus

• Continuation of actions initiated by the current management.
  • The priority is to convert the changing room in the CVT into a classroom, equipped as well as possible, with the possibility of trying out new technologies.
  • Subject to availability of funds, completion of the missing clause.
  • Continuation of the efforts that have been underway for years to acquire additional development land: the priority is the existing horticulture behind the campus wall towards the Sportovní road, possibly also the land in the "eye" between the exit from the Sportovní road to Křižíkova.
  • Consider the possibility of using new spaces for further teaching space, for research or also in connection with the other uses of the site mentioned below.
• Support the use of the campus for various events, complementing teaching and research.
  • A valuable opportunity for further visibility of the faculty, and possibly additional funding.
  • Various conferences, meetings, and other types of events: scientific events, events of developer communities, and if there is space and interest, even events from outside IT (e.g., cultural events such as exhibitions or performances).
  • Try to prepare the course schedule so that at least from a certain stage of the semester onwards, some E or D rooms can be made available for the above events.
  • Aim for good and helpful technical and administrative support.

Team

We are a team of excellent teachers as well as scientists, applied researchers, creators, and passionate people :).

FAQ

Does the "emphasis on excellence in teaching" mean that teaching should be harsher and more exclusive? +

FIT is already a rather difficult school, and we don't feel the need to tighten up the difficulty. It will be quite sufficient if we keep the difficulty and the number of students as it is.

Our understanding of excellence in teaching is about excellence in the way we teach - i.e. high quality and motivated teachers, innovative course materials and content, appropriate forms of teaching using available technology, etc. We also need to strive for collegial and functional relationships and dialogue between academics and students. Communication regarding teaching requirements must be fair, predictable and timely. Students should be assured that their legitimate requests will be considered and adequately addressed. Academics should be confident that they teach in a high quality school where students are used to working hard and not taking 'shortcuts'. Students need to know what they must do to complete the course and the whole study programme and act according to that. There can and will be exceptions, but they should be exceptional (as you would expect from an exception 🙂 ).

We need to react to changes in our industry (which is one of the fastest developing ones) - indeed, it's not the right time to teach how to program in Fortran. Of course, riding the fashion waves and making hasty steps would be a mistake. But we need to conservatively and thoughtfully evaluate what the solid fundamentals and important advanced topics are, continuously innovate the structure of the study programmes, and, especially for compulsory and core courses, maintain a truly excellent quality of teaching. In the near future, for example, advances in generative artificial intelligence will need to be sensibly taken into account so that students are not distracted from what they need to learn but, on the other hand, can apply it where appropriate.

Does the emphasis on excellence in science mean that an academic who has not had and does not have publications in major conferences or top journals, does not have a great citation response, or does not have real applications of their research in practice should fear for their job? +

It's a tricky question, so I'll allow myself a more extensive answer (the short one is at the very end 🙂 ).

Some time ago, the rule was that PhD students and researchers simply published somewhere - at some conference or in some journal. And maybe accidentally and rarely even at a good conference or in a good journal. Recently, we have been encouraging PhD students to look, together with their supervisors, for great or at least decent enough conferences and journals and think about how to publish there from the very beginning when they start research in their field. We guide them to say out loud to themselves every year how many of what kind of papers they have managed in that year and how many and what kind of papers they could manage in the next year. They have autonomy in their studies with their supervisor, but at the same time, they should be aware of their goal, quality, and good science in their field. And it's working. I see PhD students actively figuring out where to publish so that it has the appropriate impact. I also see this in many PhD students' self-evaluation reports or their individual study plans and how they have changed over time.

What is applied to PhD students should, of course, be considered even more normal for academics. All of us academics need to recognize that much of the funding and reputation of the faculty is and will be dependent on quality research, whether the outputs are publications or implementation work. For the future of the faculty, it is important that it maintains its status as a research school because this will become increasingly visible and will influence the decisions of students about where to go, the industry about whom to collaborate with, or other research universities about whom to "buddy up" with.

What matters to me is that no one gives up on science, good science, and waves their hands over it, but that everyone seeks ways, help, advice, and cooperation so that, step by step, they begin to move closer to the goal of good science, so to that they simply move in that direction (even if they may not be the most successful). I would also like to create an environment and incentives for this, e.g., in evaluating projects or publications resulting from new inter-group collaborations.

But of course, it is also possible that a research path may not really suit someone, which the person can realize even after a longer period of time. Even in such a case, I think there are plenty of ways to help the faculty - to focus on excellence in teaching, for example, or even to work in areas such as collaboration with schools, with faculty partners in preparing various events for students or the public, etc. Such activities should also be rewarded (see, for example, the points in the programme on rewarding quality teaching in a similar way as quality research).

However, the newcomers are a special case, fresh blood who should significantly move the faculty forward. For these people, there should be a strong emphasis on having the best possible prospects for research excellence (at least for a significant period of their career), but also a willingness to teach well (except possibly, very rare pure researchers, or conversely, similarly rare specialists in other areas). With this in mind, they should be very carefully selected indeed.

So the idea is not to jeopardize anyone's position but rather to ensure that the faculty can function well in the long term and that the funding does not dry up, excellent students do not disappear, and collaboration with top industry continues.

So the short answer to that question is: no, no one who is honest about the faculty is in danger.

It's certainly nice to have international ties, but doesn't day-to-day functioning mainly require good connections in the immediate area - for example, the rector's office?+

Undoubtedly, we must have functional and correct relations within the university. If relations are cold somewhere, my goal is to improve them and achieve functional communication and cooperation. It's certainly not worth expending energy on banging our heads through walls - we need to maintain good relations and cooperate with the environment of the faculty, I have no doubt about that. There are quite some people on the team who have close relationships with the faculty environment, and I think I myself am a pretty consensual person who strives for agreement and productive functioning. At the same time, I have also been a vice dean for some time, and naturally, I come into contact with many colleagues from other faculties and the rector's office. I think they have remembered me quite well over that time 🙂, which has been helped by the fact that I speak up openly and often and that we, as a faculty, have taken a very proactive and honest approach to a number of things in science and its reporting and evaluation (e.g. in the preparation of submissions in Module 1 (excellent results) or Module 3 (social relevance) of the Czech research evaluation Methodology M17+, in the division of “DKRVO” (funds for science development), etc.), which has then led to requests for sharing experiences, collaboration, etc., for example.

At the same time, it is good to keep in mind that the faculties of the BUT are in completely different fields and environments - the functioning, teaching, and industry collaboration are very different at, for example, the Faculty of Chemistry, the Faculty of Fine Arts, and FIT. Therefore, it is good that the faculties have a certain degree of autonomy and do not expect perfect and equally functional solutions to come from the centre. We can't expect other faculty to tell us how to teach about information technology or how to publish in our fields.

For our Faculty of Information Technology, it is therefore also extremely important what kind of (also personal) relationships it has with other related faculties and departments in the Czech Republic, and of course, especially the strongest ones (MU, UK, CTU, ...), where I have active cooperation, membership in various bodies and committees, joint projects or publications, etc., with other team members further complementing these contacts. Finally, concerning the growing emphasis on international cooperation and international evaluation, it is very important to have contacts and be known not only at the BUT or in the Czech Republic but also to have good contacts and be well known abroad (that is why I am very glad that I went for two years on a postdoc at a top foreign institution and that I started and continue to develop real cooperation with many foreign colleagues and that more team members are similarly or even better off in this direction).

Do we need to have such an emphasis on internationalization? Our students are and will be mainly Czechs and Slovaks. Doesn't pushing English only lead to teacher frustration and exhaustion? +

Now, only those who are willing to teach in English teach in English. Those who don't want to are not forced to. I think it should stay that way.

However, we will try to motivate the teaching of at least a certain number of other subjects in English (perhaps financially to some extent, but certainly not to a dramatic extent). We will look for ways to facilitate this (e.g. by supporting the introduction of two groups, one Czech and one English, but without a third separate "weaker" group for Erasmus), etc.

Schools are already ranked according to the level of interaction with foreign countries, so prospectively, it could be absolutely lethal if we don't have teaching in English. That's why it's good that those who teach in English are rewarded for it somehow (it's a lot of extra work; sometimes teaching foreigners is quite exhausting, I know).

Finally, internationalization is far from being just about teaching in English but also about active cooperation with foreign countries and allowing foreign PhD students, postdocs and foreign colleagues to participate at FIT fully. We really need such people as "fresh blood". And I believe it is possible even in the Czech Republic. It is naturally easier in Prague, and I have personally seen during the evaluation of projects how very beneficial foreign researchers working, for example, at CTU or UK, can be. And I believe it can be done in Brno too - finally some groups at FIT are showing the way, and foreign employees (even from the West) are not exceptional in Brno companies. Why would it be completely out of the question at a university if it works in companies?

But of course, if we want to have foreign colleagues here, we cannot put them in a can or exclude them from teaching, research evaluation, or discussions. This does not mean, of course, that everything will be completely translated into English, but we need to be gradually more welcoming towards English. In addition, foreign colleagues or PhD students can help us in teaching in English.

Why is the team of candidates for dean and vice-dean called the "Progress Team"?+

Yes, we were discussing whether this sounds too bold. But I guess it's good to have some dreams, some vision of where we're going as a faculty. Several of the potential vice deans are fresh people who have not been in faculty leadership before: Adam Herout, Jirka Jaroš, and Milan Češka. They are quite young academics but, again, not inexperienced, and I think it is clear that they care about the faculty. It can be good to bring a new perspective, a new energy to look at important agendas with fresh eyes, maybe even with a bit of naivety and curiosity. At the same time, the faculty is functioning well now, and I intend to continue to see how things are set up and to continue to look for new directions to take because of the changes around us. Therefore, it is good that the team includes experienced people from the current management - myself, the current Dean Pavel Zemčík, Vice-Deans Jarek Dytrych and Vít'a Beran. I think that this is really a team that can build on what works well and, at the same time, move the faculty forward, not conserve it in the past and let it run on its own.

They say you're the one who "pulls up the ladder" - you've already climbed up, you have your position, and you pull up the ladder for the others so they can't climb up anymore. +

As Vice Dean for Research, I played a significant role in formulating the FIT’s minimum criteria for PhD students and the minimum recommended criteria for habilitation and professorship proceedings at FIT. At the university level, we have a very outdated set of criteria that has attracted numerous unwanted smiles or criticisms, and the Vice-Rector for Science has spoken openly about the need to update it because it is not sustainable to go on applying it. Moreover, these old criteria were, for example, quite specifically and in writing criticized during the very recent reaccreditation of our habilitation and professorship procedures at the National Accreditation Office (NAÚ). Its conclusions regarding the old evaluation system included, and I quote, that it "allows a large number of less important outcomes to be used to meet the minimum criteria", along with a recommendation to remedy this situation.

According to the first discussions, the new BUT guidelines should be significantly faculty/discipline-specific. For the individual disciplines, they should be close to the criteria of comparable faculties of research universities, which, in my opinion, makes very good sense. This is because a uniform evaluation scheme for all disciplines is problematic - in architecture, chemistry, or at FIT, science and teaching are done and measured significantly differently (especially if we go to the level of individual researchers). Indeed, finding a single evaluation scheme is challenging even within the faculty because different sub-communities of computer science have different habits. As for the criteria set now, half of the people criticize that they are strict and that it is this "pulling up the ladder" thing. The other half sees them as too soft and requests them to be more motivating. It is difficult to set a uniform “muster”. Still, we need some guidance, which has also been expressed by our Scientific Council in the sense that it needs some clear basis underlying the further discussions on whether to approve some habilitation or professorship. Moreover, the candidates also need to know what they should work on when seeking academic promotion. The fact that we all work in slightly different fields is reflected in the fact that the criteria adopted are not binding but recommended, and it is up to the candidate to explain and justify objectively, if necessary, why the situation in their case is different from the typical one captured by the criteria.

Why primarily support the development of the BUT IS and build only small single-purpose applications on top of the API when we could develop our own information system that would suit us better because it would be "tailor-made" for us?+

The development of our own IS would require us to hire capable programmers (certainly at least two – indeed, problems with substitutability have already caught up with us), and if such an information system is to be sustainable, the programmers will have to be adequately paid (we cannot expect miracles for lower salaries), which would probably mean a considerable drain on the salaries of current employees. The money we are currently investing in improving the central system (e.g., according to what we know, Teacher v. 3 is being developed to be subject-oriented as it was in wis, and not aspect-oriented as it is now) would have to be further invested in API development and maintenance, so we would not save money there.

Moreover, the API of the BUT information system is not stable and probably will not be for a few years because with the transition from Apollo to the web, the data structures used are changing and the development of the API we use as the only faculty at BUT is lagging behind (some units have the old read-only API for the web, but are not even planning to switch to the new one yet). To push the development of the BUT IS in the right direction, we will find partners among other faculties much more easily and we will be able to influence how the IS will look like in a few years. Moreover, we will not be perceived by the Rector's Office as those who want to be against it again (and to which they are therefore naturally reluctant). Finally, even if we do find partners for API development, it will still be a fragile solution with the risk of going from a possibly newly developed expensive solution on top of the API back to a pure BUT IS, whose development will be influenced by others in the meantime.

How do we solve the burden of employees caused by ergonomic problems of the BUT IS, which may take years to solve? +

Other faculties have their own "gurus" who take care of many things, from preparing registrations for various study activities through setting up various course properties to entering the results they get in Excel, for example.

We could take inspiration from this and hire, e.g., two staff members to help course guarantors and lecturers with the BUT IS. One way the gurus could help is by doing individual training and demonstrations on request on how to solve exactly what the lecturers in question need so that they can then already do it themselves - not everyone is comfortable with general, complicated and long training or tutorials covering much more than they might need. (Finally, such individual guidance is already often done with the current student advisors, but they have other tasks and limited capacity.) Another option is then to ask the gurus to directly set up various aspects of courses, where the course guarantor would, for example, say in which weeks the exercises will happen and when they want to have students registered for them, and the guru would then arrange all the settings in the IS, appropriately synchronise the start of registrations with other courses, etc. The teacher would then just come to the exercise and conveniently fill in the points.

Unlike for the development of a custom user interface for the BUT IS, programmers are not needed for such work, and the faculty will incur much lower costs for this solution. The comfort of academics, on the other hand, will be higher because they can get rid of some of the administration entirely. Just as some staff members now have their travel orders filled in by secretaries, for example, they would now be able to have the guru fill in the course assessment settings, etc. (it would be enough to say, for example, just the differences from the previous year).

Why support student Discord instead of deploying our own solution that we would have control over? +

Times are changing, and so are the habits of students. In the last ten years, students have been using Fituška, Facebook, and now Discord. Suppose we work with what students are used to and use. In that case, students' attention will not be fragmented among a variety of communication channels, and we can easily achieve maximum student engagement with the faculty and effective communication. At the same time, we will be one of the faculties following modern trends and not rigidly insisting on a formal (even bureaucratic) approach. Then, if students' habits change, we can gradually join them on another platform without having to invest heavily in the change or modernization that would be necessary sooner or later with our own solution.

Suppose we set up an official channel that we order students to use. In that case, they will always set up another unofficial channel to discuss things they might be afraid to ask about on the official faculty channel (perhaps to avoid embarrassing themselves with their ignorance under their own name). This will fragment their attention, and not only will they follow the official channel less and be less informed, but we will also be less informed about what problems our students are currently dealing with and what we could do to improve faculty life. We won't be able to deny any misinformation directly, and we will only discover problems after a delay, which will not benefit our PR. After all, academics who have previously tried both the course forum in the IS (WIS/Moodle) and engagement on Discord can tell you how large the difference in student activity in discussion on these channels is. But of course, we will continue to encourage students to voluntarily be as open and non-anonymous as possible wherever possible: in lectures, in assessments, etc., and we will try our best to create a faculty spirit where such open responses are as numerous as possible.

In addition, the economic aspect must be considered too, as the introduction and maintenance of the platform itself will entail obligations (e.g., removing inappropriate content), responsibility for the content, and considerable operating costs. The Student Discord is maintained by more than ten volunteers who handle authentication, setup, moderation, etc., and we are mere guests, like in the “Kachnička” Club. Our own solution would likely require additional CVT staffing and/or adequate expense for an outsourced solution. The money needed for that can otherwise be used, for example, for teacher salaries.

The involvement of individual teachers on the student Discord will, however, stay voluntary, and everyone will be able to decide whether he/she will use this kind of communication (just as they now decide whether to use Moodle, allow streaming, etc.). It will also remain obligatory to publish all relevant organizational information (project assignments and their specifications, information on exercises, exams, etc.) via the IS so that it can be easily accessed by those who do not use Discord.

Change log

• 05.09.2023 - FAQ added
• 21.09.2023 - Additional FAQ added
• 29.09.2023 - Industry and External Relations added
• 11.10.2023 - Added/refined monitoring and consideration of teaching quality
• 11.10.2023 - Added points to the information system
• 11.10.2023 - External relations and PR added/refined
• 11.10.2023 - Development and further use of the campus added
• 11.10.2023 - Added support for the student union in its activities
• 11.10.2023 - Added workery union support for staff events
• 17.10.2023 - Added English translation