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The paper investigates the relationship between some factors related to teacher education for teaching pupils with disabilities and teacher self-efficacy for behaviour management. The research has two aims. The first is to define the latent structure of teachers' characteristics related to their education for teaching pupils with disabilities during initial education, and the second is to define the latent structure of those characteristics related to their education for teaching pupils with disabilities through in- service training. The survey included 177 teachers and it was part of the pilot study related to teachers’ self-assessment of self-efficacy for inclusive education in Istria County, Croatia. Behavioural management refers to those activities that teachers undertake to facilitate academic and socioemotional learning, and its goal is not only to maintain order in the classroom for easier adoption of information but also to encourage the social development of pupils. Teacher self- efficacy for behaviour management refers to a teacher's assessment of their own ability to successfully manage students' behaviour in the classroom, especially when faced with difficulties, such as group work, setting class rules, or controlling disruptive behaviours. The Self-Efficacy for Behaviour Management Subscale, which is an integral part of the Self-Efficacy for Inclusive Practice Questionnaire, was used as a measuring instrument. One-way and multivariate analysis of variance and discriminant analysis were used in the data processing. The results indicate the existence of statistically significant differences in self-efficacy for behaviour management between groups of teachers who did not attend any courses focused on teaching pupils with disabilities during their studies, those who attended one or two such courses, and those who attended three or more courses. In addition, statistically significant differences in self-efficacy for behaviour management were found in teachers who after their studies did not participate in in-service training focused on teaching pupils with disabilities, those who were trained for up to 20 hours, and those who were trained for 20 and more hours. Discriminant analysis showed the existence of two discriminant functions that significantly differentiate respondents in terms of the number of courses related to inclusive education they attended during initial education and the number of hours of in-service training to teach pupils with disabilities. The scientific contribution of the results is reflected in obtaining results that offer valuable insight into understanding the relationship of individual components of self- efficacy for behavioural management with factors that could affect it. The applicative value lies in the establishment of guidelines on the possibilities of enriching the professional development of teachers and building their capacities for inclusive teaching, both through initial education and through in-service training.

Raising the level of education and improving the use of professional knowledge and skills is the basis for applying new technologies and future growth and development of enterprises. As generators of growth and development, micro- enterprises are aware of their resource limitations, especially human resources. Therefore, they are focused on improving entrepreneurial competencies, knowledge, and human resources skills so that their companies can create the conditions for a more stable, competitive, and successful business in the coming period. In this paper, the level of use of knowledge and skills of micro-enterprises´ employees in the Republic of Croatia is analyzed. The aim is to present the results of comparative analyzes of two empirical studies on the use of knowledge and skills in micro-enterprises conducted in 2016 and 2020 on a sample of 112 and 121 micro-enterprises from three activities: manufacturing, construction and agriculture, fisheries and forestry from the region of Slavonia and Baranja in Croatia.

The issue of gender diversity and stereotypes related to their impact on culturally and socially conditioned performance of social, primarily work roles, has continuously caused controversy in the sociological literature since the middle of the last century. Although gender equality has reached a satisfactory level in Croatian society's formal legal framework, we often witness equal rights do not imply equal opportunities in social reality. This paper primarily focuses on the glass ceiling theory assumptions and its incidence in Croatian female scientists' attitudes compared to other sectors that employed females in Croatia. The paper aims to compare the Croatian female scientists' attitudes towards the glass ceiling theory assumptions with other female employed respondents in all other employment areas (apart from science) to determine their attitudes, similarities, and differences. The data for analysis has been collected through an online survey using the snowball method, from June 2019 until February 2020, on the representative sample of 1620 female respondents in all employment areas. The overall number of female scientists in the survey conducted is 675 (41, 7%). The paper examines the attitude of women scientists and non-scientists on whether women are equally capable of performing higher managerial positions as men and how they are promoted from entry positions to higher managerial positions. How many women are represented in governing bodies, whether they receive the same salary as men, and how many obstacles there are in advancing women's careers in science compared to other occupations? The paper also examines the differences in attitudes on women scientists and non-scientists with a non-parametric test, namely the Chi-Square Test of Independence, which determines whether there is an association between categorical variables. The study results reveal noticeable differences towards glass ceiling theory assumptions in two groups of female respondents observed proving how we need to work more on education policy for gender equality towards the full implementation of gender equality in Croatian national society.

Good practice in teaching students with dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia depends on a number of factors. One of them certainly is admitting, accepting and respecting their differences. If children with difficulties are presented as such, then we can say that we often unrealistically evaluate their achievements and we restrict or protect them too much instead of giving them an encouragement to perform various activities. Working with such students is an exceptionally demanding task for teachers, not only for the specific teaching methods but also for the fact that these difficulties are sometimes generalized to the overall behavior of the student, claiming him/her irresponsible, lazy and disinterested in school. By ignoring the difficulties, constantly emphasizing negativity, not providing opportunities for affirmation, negative evaluation, often increasing the pressure of the environment, and the area of failure, besides the academic one, extends to emotional and social difficulties, and primarily include the inability to interact successfully with peers. Therefore, at teacher training colleges in Croatia, these topics are represented in the syllabuses of courses, and, at some faculties, there are separate courses called Specific learning difficulties. There are parents associations of children with dyslexia and dysgraphia, the Croatian Association for Dyslexia, and there is almost no school without an employed speech therapist who works daily with children that have some specific learning difficulty. The speech therapist cabinets where teachers and speech therapists participate are present in every larger city. In this context, the requirements for parental involvement are particularly emphasized. Speech therapists and teachers work with them. Parents of children with specific learning difficulties must actively participate with the aim of mitigating consequences that the difficulties may have on the child's image of itself, its attitude towards school and school obligations, will for learning, emotional state and the desire to socialize with peers. Constant support, understanding and patience are needed to reduce the fear of failure. The Croatian legal framework and all the accompanying documents also emphasizes the importance of identifying and applying special methods in working with students with specific learning difficulties. Support models are not only limited to differentiate curricula but to individualized approaches, competences and partnership as well as learning results. All this with the aim of supporting and respecting diversity where inclusion is implemented in the real sense of the word, and where the pupil's achievements and talent are in first place, not his/her shortages.

With its appearance in early 2020, the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic was the cause of significant changes in the educational system of Croatia. The widespread lockdown that followed meant that teachers at all educational levels had to transfer their classes into the digital world and make changes to their teaching methodology and approaches so they fit the requirements of distance education. Such a drastic shift also entailed that they had to select and employ various pieces of software as well as ICT services in order to organise online teaching and learning, enable communication with the students, set up evaluation tasks and carry out testing. The paper at hand presents a selected subset of results from a research into the attitudes and practices of Croatian teachers and students related to distance education during the lockdown period in Croatia (mid-March to mid-May 2020), with a special emphasis on the use of software. The research was conducted on a large number of participants (N=7568) from all three levels of the educational system using a specially designed, digitally administered questionnaire. There are three research questions specifically targeted in the paper: (1) how widespread was the use of (any) software by the teachers (during the educational process) and were there cases in which teachers did not use digital technology at all to reach educational goals?, (2) which software was used by the teachers at particular educational levels and for what purpose? and (3) are there cases of software use that reveal new or unexpected usage patterns?

The impact of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is profound on higher education institutions (HEI). HEIs become more accountable for the data they possess regarding their research activities, project activities, most notably teaching activities. As well, they ought to provide detailed databases of what sensitive data remains, as well as documents detailing whether it was stored, how it was obtained, who has access to it, and whether it should be deleted or anonymized. Information about students are generated in different ways: when designing different projects, seminars, essays, exams, but also when using e-learning systems. This article present research findings on students' preferred activities and their perceptions of privacy in the online learning system. The students were encouraged to use different activities within the e-learning system and to evaluate what they liked best with regard to the different types of tasks they were supposed to do. Furthermore, students were asked to evaluate their concerns about their privacy when using certain activities within e-learning platform. Extensive discrepancies in the individual learning trajectories demonstrate that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution in education. Adaptive online learning environment is continuously adapted to accommodate differences between learners in order to address this challenge. Presented results will enable better understanding of student preferences and thus help all participants in the teaching process to address online activities that will help students to achieve the best possible knowledge and skills.

As information service production is performed in short bursts, conventional approaches frequently do not have enough time to produce good user experience (UX). Lean UX and other types of UX both share the same aim in mind: to reach a better user interface. Typical questions that should be addressed in the UX sketching concept of the service may include: Who are our users? For what is the product used? When is it used? What situations is it used in? What will be the most important functionality? What’s the biggest risk to product delivery? As opposed to designing products, services, and solutions based upon the preferences of the design team preferences, it has become standard practice to collate research and personify certain trends and patterns in the data as personas. Personas are fictional characters, created based upon research in order to represent the different user types that might use service, product, site, or brand in a similar way. Creating personas can help to understand users’ needs, experiences, behaviours and goals. This article presents the use of simulation method in teaching students basic concepts of IT service development, focusing specifically on defining customer profiles. The students were “acting” the employers of IT firm that is to develop new mobile, web or desktop application. One of the case study was to define characteristics of customer which will be using this application. Students/employers were invited to use various methods to describe customer profile as well as customer requirements.

Private higher education is somewhat a rather new phenomenon in Croatia that has been developing over the course of the past few years. Most private HEIs offer undergraduate and graduate business administration programs and claim a higher focus on practical skills and entrepreneurship than their public counterparts. Public HEIs in the field of business management have been present for a quite longer time and do not seem to respond publicly to the claims of private HEIs that are still trying to find and strengthen their place in the higher education system in Croatia. The purpose of this paper is to offer a comprehensive literature review on the factors influencing entrepreneurial intention in students. More specifically, this paper aims to explore the role of the institutional setting, i.e. the HEI that the students are attending, and to analyse the possible differences between the entrepreneurial intention of students from public and private HEIs. In order to do this, we will collect and analyse data from two matched samples of undergraduate and graduate students attending similar programs that point out the development of entrepreneurial skills as one of their learning outcomes.

The genesis of man’s development points to the fact of his constant fluctuations and asymptotic nature. Therefore, different philosophical-anthropological conceptions view man as an open creature which constantly defines itself. The anthropological understanding of man as an imperfect being with a sense of its own existence in the constant process of overcoming his own limitations with work and creation points to the fact that man’s development depends more on educational and cultural encouragement than on the unconscious fluctuations of evolution. Man, thus, constantly realizes and self-realizes, grows, develops, advances, and defines himself by influencing his own anthropogenesis and evolution. In that sense, his activity presents a significant educational and self-educational action because precisely the educational process enables him a transition from lower to more perfect and complete forms of humanity. Historically speaking, there has always been a changing tendency to advance man. The cause of this is the difference in understanding the concept of man, the degree of his development, science and technology, society i.e. creativity in the wider sense, which points to the difference in vision of an educational goal and an ideal to which man strives. It is in precisely this later part where we find the common tendency which reaches above man’s attempts in the educational area in the sense of time, space, and creativity-development. The educational ideal, therefore, reflects the common values and positive attempts of the human community in achieving those highest values and ideals. It marks an ideal state of perfection and a final value. An ideal is set as a role-model, somewhat out of reach. As such, it is always a motive to move forward, towards something better, more perfect and wholesome with an eternal drive towards the improvement of man. The question of ‘improving’ a man in the circumstances of today’s quick technologization without a doubt involves a discussion on what it means to be a man, a person i.e. what is the point in which a human being stops being human and becomes something else. In previous works, this later was called Robo Sapiens, Cyborg or, more generally, Super- man by putting the attempts to define man so far into the circumstances set by post-humanism and transhumanism. This paper represents the philosophy of transhumanism and post-humanism as well as the idea of forming a completely new superman as a continuation of his own evolutionary process. The potential positive and negative sides of such a nearly futuristic pondering on man and his role in the world are highlighted by connecting the future we speak of with the traditional humanistic and pedagogical presumptions on man, education, and values which make it. The role of school is highlighted in the implementation of educational values, awareness, new meanings and future generations of young people who will, undoubtedly, live a transhumanistic reality in which the question of freedom is the key notion to understand one’s own life and a guiding question towards the sustainability of the life of a community.

Within contemporary pedagogical discourse, the importance of building a school as a human prosocial community has been recognized. In this context, many researches are focused on how pupils feel at school in general, how they perceive and experience relationship between teachers and students, how they perceive the quality of social integration in school, do they feel motivated and competent at what they do at school, etc. The importance of reflecting on such and similar issues is based on the view that the student's experience of school life plays an important role not only for their socio-emotional well-being but also for their school success. In that sense, increasing emphasis is placed on the socio- emotional dimension of school life which has already been integral part of numerous alternative pedagogical conceptions and schools, such as Waldorf. The aim of this empirical study was to assess and compare students’ perception of quality of school life in traditional and Waldorf schools. The participants were 256 students from fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade (188 from 3 state schools and 68 from 2 Waldorf schools in Croatia). The data were collected by the mean of questionnaire. The analyses of the results indicate that students from Waldorf schools express positive feelings toward school while students from state school express neutral feelings. Differences were also evident regarding student’s perception of specific dimension of school life (sense of school competence, relevance of schooling, learning experience, relationship with the teachers and social integration) in favour of students from Waldorf schools especially with regard to their learning experience at school. Proceeding from research results and some specifics of Waldorf pedagogical conception, prerequisites for development of quality of school life is discussed with special emphasis on the teacher's role.

Universities research environment often need flexible IT infrastructure for network services research as well as isolated lab working environments for students. Different research environment groups and applications have to be moved in cloud to be able to allocate resource on demand, e.g. number of CPU cores. Also, a system that supports flexible and automated environment is needed, which can be installed / reinstalled in couple of minutes supporting computing nodes and upgraded as research activities grows with no service discontinuity. As Lab virtualized infrastructure, OpenStack as common open source platform is used, built on UNIX based operating system and Intel based hardware. This paper analyses known industry approaches and virtualization techniques resulting with design of the lab virtualized infrastructure that are going to enable flexible research working environment. Network function virtualization as key part of such modular environment should improve performance and security, as well as change physical network components. The usage of Virtual Machines (VM) or containers are key elements inside Lab infrastructure in order to provide an abstraction between hardware resources and applications. Before LAB design creation as the final result, basics items and steps have to be adopted and defined, such as standardisation of students/research groups that can interact with the system, self-managing and orchestration. Common building blocks are used as parts of design such as hardware based on x86 industry, hypervisors, UNIX based operating system, databases, high performance data model. The main goal is design of a lab environment, which enable flexible, secure, high available and self-growing platform where different research groups and students can develop and test their systems and get reliable results.

This paper aims at offering a theoretical reflection on child participation’s meanings and strategies in Residential Care Centers (hereafter RCC). The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development intends on investing in children, viewing them as contributors to the construction of a more just, equitable, tolerant, open and socially inclusive world. The UN manifesto also emphasizes the need to strive for a nurturing environment in which children can fully realize their rights and capabilities [1]. Hence, it is vital to reflect on the meanings and strategies of child participation in alternative care settings [2] where children are more vulnerable by definition and often precluded from contributing to the decisions concerning their lives [3] [4], although mechanisms to ensure their participation have been implemented [5]. Ensuring children’s participation, especially younger children’s participation, in the child protection system is challenging for practitioners, as it requires balancing their institutional mandate as adults in charge of protecting the child (which entails dynamics of power and authority) with the need to competently foster the child’s own participation as a key form of intervention against violence, also institutional violence [6] Goffman [7], and as a form of prevention of, and a strategy for coping with, adverse childhood experiences. Hence, RCC practitioners require specific professional competence if they are to understand the meanings and value of child participation and encourage its practice, especially when dealing with younger children, in their educational relationship with the child. Thus, there is a need to identify forms and strategies of participation, sustainable both for practitioners (taking into account their institutional mandate and the associated constraints) and for children (in light of their particular stage of development and their specific life stories). The paper will present a reflection on the international policy framework on child participation, with a specific focus on participation in RCCs. At the heart of the paper a reflection on meanings, forms and strategies of child participation in RCCS.

In the broadest terms, socialization is defined as the process with which people acquire attitudes, values, and norms of a particular culture, as well as learn behaviours that are considered appropriate at the individual and social level. School as an institution has a very important influence on the adoption of social and cultural patterns of the child’s behaviour. It is the place of adoption, selection, formation, and imitation of attitudes, values, and norms that the child/young person will bring to his or her society and culture in the future. If new generations do not adopt his way of life, society as such ceases to exist. Each school represents a very specific social environment regardless of the common national curricula and the legal basis on which the functioning of the school as an institution rests. A school in which a positive culture prevails, together with encouraging atmosphere that promotes positive values, tolerance, understanding, partnership, cooperation, equality, appreciation... encourages the adoption of such qualities in students as well. Many studies emphasize the importance of the hidden curriculum in the process of developing the students’ value system. The hidden curriculum is difficult to define explicitly because it depends on both personal impression and experiences, as well as the variability conditioned by constant social changes. The hidden curriculum assumes learning of attitudes, norms, beliefs, values, and assumptions, which is all often expressed in the form of unwritten rules, rituals, and regulations. It is reflected in the culture of school, the characteristics and behaviour of teachers towards students and each other, the values they promote as well as priorities and hierarchies they develop... Sociological as well as pedagogical-phenomenological research has pointed to significant correlations of pedagogical interaction with implicit education theories of individual teachers, their attitudes and values, rather than with the official curriculum (Jackson, 1968 ; McGutcheon 1988). The role of the hidden curriculum needs to be systematically and thoughtfully approached, questioned, and directed in the desirable direction. Although the hidden curriculum is often perceived as destructive, negative, and subversive, it can be both constructive and desirable. Many pedagogues note the space for its positive function (Tanner, Tanner, 1980 ; Wren, 1999 ; Chhaya, 2003 ; Jerald, 2006). They see the school as a harmonized and stimulating environment for learning and adopting values and attitudes. The aim of this paper is to analyse the given field of study by reviewing the literature and to juxtapose the mechanisms within schools that help adopt attitudes and build a system of values for children and young people. Also, to think and aim to raise awareness of the relationships between a part of the educational process that pedagogical experts and teachers manage to systematize, prescribe, and control, and which belongs to the intentional education as well as the part belonging to the area of the hidden, implicit curriculum. In this context, the question of the socialization role of school in the formation of contemporary society’s value forms is emphasized, and this issue will be regarded in the context of the hidden curriculum.

Through the development of strategic planning of ICT integration, educational institutions (EIs) can identify elements used to support such integration in educational processes and business-related activities. Planning the use of ICT in learning and teaching, and in business activities, in primary and secondary schools in Croatia is becoming more important in terms of preparing schools for educational reform and for aiding the effective and appropriate use of the ICT infrastructure, enhancing digital skills and increasing the digital competences of teachers and students. In order to help EIs achieve these goals, the Croatian Academic and Research Network launched “eSchools: Establishing a System for Developing Digitally Mature Schools” [1], an EU- funded pilot project with the aim of increasing the digital maturity of primary and secondary schools in Croatia. Following the aims of the project, we have developed the Framework for Digitally Mature Schools (FDMS), which consists of five evaluation areas and five levels of digital maturity, to allow EIs to assess their current level of digital maturity [2]. After assessing their level of digital maturity, the next step is to empower EIs to plan their ICT use in accordance with their mission, vision and strategic goals. Therefore, we have developed guidelines for the strategic planning of ICT integration in schools. The main objective of this paper is to present the developed methodology for the strategic planning of ICT integration. There is no doubt that ICT is a key component of a 21st-century education, which is the main reason why EIs must start planning and changing their processes. We can describe the steps and methods used in our methodology by answering three main questions: [A1] What is the school’s present position in terms of ICT integration? [A2] Where does the school want to be in the future? [A3] How will the school reach its desired position? The paper focuses on the FDMS area of Planning, Management and Leadership, and it contributes by offering an approach to developing, and the experience of implementing, a strategic plan for ICT integration in EIs in Croatia.

The aim of this research was to determine the differences in motor abilities and morphological characteristics between primary school female pupils from Croatia and Spain. The research sample included a total of 83 female pupils, where 43 from Zagreb (7, 6±0, 5 years of age), Croatia and 40 from Murcia, Spain (6, 9±0, 9 years of age) who were attending primary school. The results were described with descriptive statistics while normality of distribution was tested by the Kolmogorov- Smirnov test and statistically significant difference between the groups was determined by the Student t-test. Results showed statistically significant differences in anthropometrical measure of height (p=0, 00) and body weight (p=0, 02) where Croatian children are taller and thicker in comparison of Spain girls. Statistically significant differences have been determined in motor abilities explosive strength (standing long jump test (p=0, 00)), flexibility (sit and reach test (p=0, 017)), and coordination (backwards obstacle course (p=0, 01)) where Croatian girls showed better results. Spain girls showed statistically significantly better results in motor ability speed of movement frequency (hand tapping test (p=0, 01)). In accordance with European and international guidelines, it is necessary to conduct different research that would provide comparability with other countries in the field of anthropological characteristics of children in primary education.

he aim of this research was to identify generic kinesiology competences of the teachers in primary education in the Republic of Croatia who have up to five years of professional work experience in school. The research sample included a total of 241 primary school teachers randomly chosen across Republic of Croatia. The study evaluated the generic kinesiology competences with composite measuring instrument, the questionnaire International Survey of Teacher Competences in the Field of Physical Education (Kovač et al., 2008 ; Tul et al., 2013), where teachers made self-evaluation of their value orientations according to their attitudes about acquired generic competences for working in the area of physical education with the pupils in primary school education. The anonymous questionnaire consisted of 36 items. For each of the statements, the participants gave three answers on a four-point Likert-type scale. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the results, and the normality of distribution was tested by Kolmogorov- Smirnov test. Factor analysis was used as a parametric statistical method for isolating seven factors describing the latent area of the acquired generic kinesiology competences of primary education teachers at the beginning of their professional work experience in schools.

This paper will present some pedagogical reflections on the training needs of professionals involved in childhood protection system, with regard to the leaving care phase of children and young people placed in residential care facilities. The considerations here illustrated are related to the qualitative analysis of the first results collected from the training course developed by SOS Children’s Villages Italy (within a wider partnership lead by SOS Children’s Villages International) as part of the two-year project Prepare for Leaving Care (co-funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship –REC-Programme of the European Commission, 2017-2018). This paper will present the results of the evaluation of Italian training courses realised during the past year in order to teach how to embed a child rights based approach into their daily work with focus on the leaving care phases. Finally, the paper will underlined how the training of professionals involved in childhood protection system is a pedagogical challenge [1] in terms of developing a multi-professional équipe and high level of competences –included emotional ones [2]– in order to sustain young people in developing their own project of life.

In Italy, the university training of education professionals currently consists of a three-year bachelor's degree program for educators and a five-year master's degree program for adult educators.Educational work does not simply consist of direct relationships with the people intended to benefit from it: the provision of educational services demands a significant level of coordination, planning, and organization. In Italy, these functions are performed by adult educators, that is to say, professionals with a Master's Degree who are specialists in educational processes. The specific role of these professionals is to design, manage and evaluate educational services: they may be employed as coordinators, directors, counsellors, or supervisors in the field of education.Italian adult educators must therefore receive training in a range of skills and competences, given that they may be required to fulfil a variety of different roles.This paper presents and analyses the practical training component in the university training of Italian adult educators, consisting of both e-learning and group sessions. The design of this component was underpinned by a number of generic assumptions, the most important of which is that educators must develop research skills if they are to fully attain the required professional competence.Specifically, undertaking and conducting research requires the ability to analyze contexts, identify relevant themes, construct and deconstruct issues, and deal with multiple dimensions of knowledge (both theoretical and practical). Designing and implementing a research project in an educational context can make a key contribution to mastering the main skills required by an educational counsellor, supervisor or coordinator. Asking students to carry out research implies viewing them as capable of identifying their own learning interests and developing a clear vision of their professional futures, in other words, as students with agency who are prepared to abandon a purely passive stance.After this model had been pilot tested for one year, we conducted an evaluation based on feedback received from the participants. The students reported experiencing an unanticipated level of disorientation, which had not been easy for them to cope with. More specifically, they mentioned difficulties in connecting the different perspectives encountered in the course of their studies, recognizing their own competences and negotiating their role with external institutions. Overall, they were disoriented in relation to their own learning interests and future professional identity. These dimensions could not be taken for granted and demanded a space in which to be discussed. The feedback from the evaluation thus led us to look more closely at how the university goes about organizing and managing professional training programs. The role of higher education is changing and the traditional distinctions between formal, non-formal and informal learning called into question. Personal knowledge and transversal skills, as well as the ability to manage a composite and changing professional identity, connect experience acquired across different contexts (formal and non-formal), and identify and construct competences are becoming increasingly relevant. This means that the notion of competence should not be viewed from a purely instrumental perspective but needs to be discussed at multiple levels.Fostering this kind of reflective process means caring for the "third mission" assigned to universities: that of developing and promoting lifelong and lifewide learning.

In Australia, the property professional is regulated via a variety of prescribed licensing and educational requirements. However, individually the states and territories differ with regards to educational requirements associated with occupational licensing in the property discipline. When the government in New South Wales introduced CPD over a decade ago, the aim was to improve consumer protection whilst maintaining public confidence with the transactions related to the property professional. This research paper identifies one category of licensing, namely, Strata Managing Agents, and examines the compulsory requirements for continuing professional development (CPD). Therefore, a case study approach of the syllabus requirements during the last 10 years is undertaken and evaluated by identifying the relevant fields of knowledge mandated and their association with expected learning outcomes. In addition, statistical and descriptive data is analysed and mapped. The aim of the research paper is to evaluate whether or not consumer protection has been sustained through the CPD topics mandated. The paper concludes with recommendations on the content and course delivery options associated with CPD.

The aim of this paper is focused on defining effective pedagogical elements for creating an inclusive curriculum through the theory of social constructivism. In the conext of the mentioned theory emphasis is placed on the elements of school organization and on the definition of the socio-cultural dimension of schools. As the effective implementation of educational inclusion in schools is focused on creating high-quality communication between all participants of the school process, this paper will provide a view on the role of pupils, teachers and classrooms in the context of social constructivism. Pupils in the context of the mentioned theory should participate in an active dialogue between the participants in the classroom as a place of educational inclusion. The role of the teachers emphasis given to ensuring the autonomy of pupils in the process of acquiring necessary knowledge and skills for their future education, lives and work. In the context of school practice the principles of inclusive education are based on the definition of classrooms as communities in which every child feels happy and in which every child has the opportunity to achieve knowledge, regardless of differences. Possible conclusion is focused on the importance of active involvement of all participants in the process of school development in creating positive attitudes towards diversity in an inclusive environment. In the context of social constructivism it becomes a task of all participants in school practice.

This is a research on the areas and criteria of excellence in primary and secondary education at the level of regional self-government. The study was conducted on a sample of 33 primary and 13 secondary schools founded by the Varaždin County. On the basis of research data and using the Pareto principle and descriptive statistics a model for determination of excellence in primary and secondary education at the level of regional self-government is presented. The areas analysed in the study are very important for the functioning of the school system, because they include lifelong learning, attitude towards business on the principles of good management, encouragement of learning competencies for the real sector, promotion of the sustainable development, computerization, introduction of project financing and working with gifted students. The model of excellence is shown through seven areas of schools’ work, and for each there are certain criteria. These seven areas of schools’ work include: excellence of the managing personnel since their excellence is crucial in decision making. The excellence of business expenditures refers to the expenditure management which determines financial equality among schools. Analysis and criteria for determination are made using the Pareto principle for the expenditures that make up 80% of the financial cost of the schools. The excellence of student entrepreneurship refers to programs of student entrepreneurship which are important educational elements, created according to the needs of the environment in which the school operates. The excellence of green programs in education has a significant importance in school business, and in the field of education and sustainable development of the environment in which the school operates. It includes programs which refer to energy efficiency and renewable energy, and educating teachers on the environmental protection, rational use of energy and the implementation of eco programs. Nowadays, in the time of global computerization, the excellence of e- programs is extremely important for the school system in its mission of education, but also for the business of the school as an institution. Also, the excellence of the EU programs is of great importance for the school system. It encourages project financing and partnership in the implementation of projects financed by EU funds which improve the educational system. Programs of excellence for gifted students enable a large number of them to meet their interests and develop their skills for specific areas and specialties. The excellence of gifted students implies students' and teachers' participation in the work of centers of excellence, as well as their participation and results in competitions at local, national and international level. After the consolidation of the results of excellence in these seven areas, the model is given on the basis of which we follow excellence at the level of regional self-government. The model and the results give us an overview of the areas and schools which are the basis of excellence. They also give us an overview of the participation in the excellence results by some schools and areas, as well as of those schools and areas where the principle of progress and improvement should be applied.

Inclusion of children from bilingual families in the education system should be considered from a pedagogical perspective because the emphasis is focused on child upbringing and education. The theme of bilingualism is important for social and pedagogical context for the application of new methods and forms of work in the development of bilingual speech of children in families as well as other educational institutions of the formal system. Whether monolingual, bilingual or multilingual the family is one of the most important factors in a child's development with almost decisive influence on the child's personality. The aim of this paper is to show the role of bilingualism in the context of the family as the primary factor of education, as well as the later involvement of the institutional system of education. In the context of this study bilingualism is displayed as simultaneously adoption of the two languages up to pre-school period with emphasis on the method of “one parent- one language”. In each family upbringing of a child is way to raise awareness of belonging to a particular environment, developing an awareness of personal and cultural identity which is especially noticeable in bilingual families in which the mother and father of the child want to transfer their language, culture and history. In order to highlight the common parental misconceptions about the negative impact of simultaneous bilingualism on speech and language development of children this paper presents speech and language development of bilingual children compared to children exposed to one language. Emphasize is on the association between parents success of upbringing children in bilingual environment and their attitudes towards bilingualism. Bilingual education and bilingualism are challenges which are placed in front of the entire family and educational institutions which emphasize the relevance of the theme in wider social and narrow pedagogical context.

Human resource capacity has become a critical issue in human resource management (HRM) at public universities and other higher education institutions (HEIs) as a result of governments’ decisions influenced by recession. The quality of decision making in HRM is key to organizational success, especially in higher education (HE) systems where legal requirements and administrative rules often lead to the inflexibility and rigidity, and the budget for hiring or promoting employers is restricted. This paper presents the AHP model for decision making on the best candidate for the job position at HEIs. The model is developed based on the results of qualitative analysis, interviews with managers at HEIs and group decision making. The criteria weights are calculated based on the judgments of managers and professors at HEIs. The developed AHP model can be adopted and used for decision making on specific problems in human resource management in education.

It is recognized that the contemporary era is marked by the widespread availability of technologies, a source of radical change that is deeply influencing the modes of learning and knowledge-building of the so-called digital natives. More recently, the children and young people of today have been defined as “the touch-screen generation” due to their constant use of tablets and related applications, which is bringing about further changes in their relationship with culture. This last development in particular seems to have led to a different way of exploring objects and consequently of exploring contents. While we do not wish to pre-empt the results of studies that are currently underway, preliminary observational findings suggest that that children’s approach to contents is increasingly mediated by contact with touch surfaces, which in turn implies a different use of the sensory skills. This represents a new two-dimensional revolution that adds a new perspective to the existing key and multiple vanishing points of the civilization of image: this novel perspective includes a time dimension that is regulated by touch and is more predictable than the exploration of reality. These early observations already prompt us to problematize some key issues, in particular the need to provide opportunities for young children to engage directly with objects and materials: not in opposition to their natural predisposition as members of the touch-screen generation, but to offer them a valuable and complementary mode of exploration and research that can contribute to the development of integrated and complex modes of knowledge-building. In this paper, we analyze observations and video-recordings collected in early childhood services, discussing the value in today’s context of making unstructured materials available for children’s play, with a particular emphasis on those materials defined as “unconventional”, including industrial waste products. The last-mentioned materials are particularly contemporary and therefore suitable for the younger generations, while their undefined nature may help to develop complementary competencies that are less easily drawn out by other means.

hroughout history, certain models of rehabilitation have been developed, that relate to the integration of people with mild or severe disabilities into society. Integration of people with disabilities in the social environment differed, taking into account the representation of certain models of rehabilitation, as well as with regard to socio - cultural context. The aim of this paper is to show the role of the model of rehabilitation during the creation of inclusive practices today with review to the Croatian educatioal system. During the sixties of the 20th century, medical model prevailed, whereby the person with disabilities was treated as a social problem. By the turn of of the seventies and eighties of the last century, there was a deficiency model as a transition from the medical to a social model, which has done a remarkable shift in the rehabilitation of persons with disabilities. Unlike the medical model in which disabled people were accepted as problematic persons who presented a problem for society, the social model emphasizes the role and attitude of society towards people with disabilities, as well as the focus on the preparation of the social environment of acceptance of disabled people. The aim of the social model is to include persons with difficulties, not only in broader social enviorment, but also in narrower educational environment. Since the educational inclusion emerges as a model that expands and deepens the integration model of people with special needs in society and regular schools, this paper will provide an overview of the history of the relationship between society towards people with disabilities, with emphasis on rehabilitation models and their role in creation of today's inclusive practice in educational context. Since the fundamental human right is the right to education, qualitative application of inclusive education assumes and requires changes in educational policy and practice such as implementation of new methods and forms in work with people with special educational needs.

The educational use of unconventional materials – understood as highly informal and undefined materials that have not been designed for didactic purposes and which as yet are not widely used in schools (Guerra, Zuccoli, 2012; Guerra, 2013) – is a theme that has been attracting increasing interest and targeted research initiatives at different levels of schooling. Indeed such materials – given that they are inexpensive, readily available and easily sourced, may be used flexibly and foster creative and divergent experience – represent a potentially valuable resource for educational services and schools seeking new and stimulating ways to interact with their broader context. This paper presents the outcomes of qualitative research conducted at infant toddler centers, preschools and primary schools, outlining both the transversal usefulness and meaning of unconventional materials for children in general, and the specific ways in which children relate to them at different ages.

Lifelong learning is becoming more and more established in German society as an integral component of education. For this reason universities must try to meet the needs of the different student groups in a considerably more targeted way. Each group has special needs, in particular, professionals studying alongside their fulltime careers. For example, when interviewed, this group more often made a higher subjective estimate of their learning success if they had received positive support during their studies. On the other side, to meet the demands which academic studies will make on their time and lives, the professionals themselves must prepare conscientiously, when deciding to continue their education alongside their careers. The route to completing a degree is not without obstacles. In particular the time management and level of organisation required to combine studies with other areas of life, the work-life-learn balance, turns out to be exceedingly difficult.Within the framework of the model project “Open University” we have gathered data over 3 years in a longitudinal survey on the characteristics of the new university target groups. The goal of the study was to fill the clear deficit of information regarding students in full time employment by gathering tested scientific data on the central factors influencing these students’ success in their lifelong learning. Our findings show that the characteristics of successful students are a high level of professional commitment and the readiness to sacrifice or limit certain aspects of private life for the duration of their studies. In addition, self-motivation to explore topics further than proscribed course content is also connected to study success. Therefore, the successful students are those committed and independent personalities who are ready to apply themselves to pursue their studies in order to realise ambitious professional goals.Our knowledge about the ideal professional student has flowed into the development of our online-self-assessment tool, “The LLL Professional”. This tool allows professionals who are considering studying alongside work to reflect on their strengths and interests as well as their current private and work situation to help them envision a work-learn-life reality (similar to the concept of a realistic job preview). The tool is an internet-based orientation resource with which users can make a realistic self-assessment to match their own interests and expectations against success factors for studying alongside work. The included variables for success were identified in our longitudinal study and fall into the categories: learning type, work-learn-life-balance, support from family, friends and acquaintances, career aspirations and possibilities for transfer of learning into the workplace, motivation, and commitment to perform well. In addition, the tool presents typical situations and video clips from a working student’s life with real narratives from professional students mixed in. The participants receive meaningful and helpful feedback regarding their strengths and weaknesses.

Recent social developments have increased the demand for a highly skilled workforce and thus for higher qualifications and education. Access to higher education must therefore be made more widely available and support structures need to be refined especially for those who have participated less in the past, e.g. adult learners, those from non-academic backgrounds and/or students in employment. At the same time, higher education institutions (HEIs) have to adapt to these new student groups, their needs and the new economic and political demands. To do this, universities need to respond with necessary structural changes in order to bring a strong focus on lifelong learning specific to the needs of today’s knowledge-based society. To widen participation for traditionally excluded student groups, the European research project OPULL (Opening Universities for Lifelong Learning) aims to deduce success factors for HEIs opening up to non-traditional learners. The project, that runs from 2009 to 2013, is led by the Leuphana University Lüneburg in Germany in collaboration with universities in Denmark, Finland and the United Kingdom and is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). During the first phase, the project examined the educational systems of the four countries, possible access paths to HEIs and recognition of prior learning. The findings from this phase made it evident that there are various ways to react successfully to processes of change in European universities. Different dimensions of these processes are researched, describing the institutional structures, institutional variations, the paths of change, as well as costs and benefits, to answer the following research questions:What are the drivers for HEIs to become open to non-traditional students? Who are the key stakeholders engaging in the transformation process? What does the path of institutional change look like? How prominent is the opening process within the institution? What are potential benefits and weaknesses of the opening process for students, universities and businesses? And what influences do the existing educational systems and economy have on the transformation process?The presentation is intended to outline how HEIs can respond to continuous change within the European academic landscape by describing and comparing four case studies (University of Southern Denmark, Open University at the University of Helsinki, Leuphana University Lüneburg and Open University(UK)) and their reactions to contemporary change. The comparison focuses on the German case - the Leuphana University Lüneburg - as a reference point. It developed a four unit model in order to reorganise its structure according to European Union and national education policies. As a pioneer in academic quaternary education, Leuphana redesigned its institutional structure based on USA models. Currently the university comprises a House of Research, a College, a Graduate School and - still unique in German higher education - a Professional School for students in full-time employment.

LACE or Literature And Culture in Europe is a network working towards a joint and double international master's degree in the fields of literature and culture. Composed out of five progressive European universities, it wants to, in a first phase, improve the 'internationalization at home' by stimulating the venue of inbound international students in the master programmes at the arts departments of het involved institutions. Besides that, it wants to facilitate the exchange of teachers in all classes, in the form of block seminars. In our paper we will present the current setup and architecture of the LACE support system and situate it into the university's Open Policies and our theoretical views on online open teaching, based on years-long experience in E-Learning pilots. ispartof: pages:005427-005436 ispartof: Edulearn10 Proceedings CD pages:005427-005436 ispartof: Edulearn location:Barcelona date:5 Jul - 7 Jul 2010 status: published

Adapting to the needs of the millennium generation student in a rapidly changing information society confronts our educational system with new challenges. During the learning process, students become more and more responsible for the management of there own information processes. After their graduation, the job market expects them to function as mobile knowledge-workers. It is therefore vital that students acquire the right attitudes and skills in order to survive in this information society. This implies that they learn the skills necessary to deal with the ceaseless information flood and to manage the information that was gathered. On the other hand they must be made aware of the digital footsteps their private, academic and professional activities leave and that they are capable of controlling this digital trace. These issues go beyond the limits of courses or institutions. In many fields, teachers are confronted with students who notably lack the necessary skills. However, due to the specialization of the education it is difficult to include the required training in the conventional curriculum. At the Catholic University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven) and its associated institutes for higher education we have initiated a multidisciplinary effort to develop tools for the students to acquire the essential skills to improve their personal information management. This implies not only a wide range of practical competences, but also more conceptual skills, and more importantly, a consistent attitude, which are necessary in their educational careers and later in their professional life. It is a common misunderstanding that these computer-related skills are only relevant at a basic level. Quite on the contrary, our research aims to show how deep this relates to the development of a professional profile and identity. Our project has one main strategic goal and two operational goals. Our strategic goal is to make the students more aware of the need for adequate information skills, and learn that it is their own responsibility to upscale their competences where and when required. In order to achieve this goal, we are working towards two operational goals. The first operational goal is to implement a community where existing information, projects and experience from teachers and institutes throughout our association can be consolidated. This provides a single point of contact for the student about information skills: http://www.informatiewijzer.be. Our second operational goal is to develop tools such as tests, information leaflets, learning objects and news articles, which may help the students to train on these competences. The resulting Information Companion - now actively integrated in our learning system serving 75000+ students on a daily basis - is a website that has three parts: a blog on daily life ICT problems containing both student posts that are moderated and corrected by staff members as well as posts by experts; a structured personal information guide to which blog posts link through tags, and a self-test for students to assess their awareness, also linked to the information guide. In this contribution, we describe the results of a very large survey we performed with students (>7000 respondents). We look into specific gender differences and bachelor/master differences and do some evidence-based suggestions for adaptive remedy policies for universities. ispartof: pages:005399-005406 ispartof: Edulearn10 Proceedings CD pages:005399-005406 ispartof: Edulearn location:Barcelona date:5 Jul - 7 Jul 2010 status: published

Currently the Bachelor of Design is the generic degree offered to the four disciplines of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Industrial Design, and Interior Design within the School of Design at the Queensland University of Technology. Regardless of discipline, Digital Communication is a core unit taken by the 600 first year students entering the Bachelor of Design degree. Within the design disciplines the communication of the designer's intentions is achieved primarily through the use of graphic images, with written information being considered as supportive or secondary. As such, Digital Communication attempts to educate learners in the fundamentals of this graphic design communication, using a generic digital or software tool. Past iterations of the unit have not acknowledged the subtle difference in design communication of the different design disciplines involved, and has used a single generic software tool. Following a review of the unit in 2008, it was decided that a single generic software tool was no longer entirely sufficient. This decision was based on the recognition that there was an increasing emergence of discipline specific digital tools, and an expressed student desire and apparent aptitude to learn these discipline specific tools. As a result the unit was reconstructed in 2009 to offer both discipline specific and generic software instruction, if elected by the student. This paper, apart from offering the general context and pedagogy of the existing and restructured units, will more importantly offer research data that validates the changes made to the unit. Most significant of this new data is the results of surveys that authenticate actual student aptitude versus desire in learning discipline specific tools. This is done through an exposure of student self efficacy in problem resolution and technological prowess - generally and specifically within the unit. More traditional means of validation is also presented that includes the results of the generic university-wide Learning Experience Survey of the unit, as well as a comparison between the assessment results of the restructured unit versus the previous year.

The course aim is to encourage students to comprehend the importance of communities in the health of individuals and families. The course is based on approach in medical education that main fields of action for physicians are human settlements, not laboratories and consulting rooms. Students have opportunity to perceive community inside and outside of health care system, and to study epidemiological and socio-medical determinants of health, throughout activities of health and social care systems. Students work under supervision of local health professionals, physicians and community nurses, in order to facilitate experience, knowledge, skills and attitudes transfer. Course, composed of seminars (18 hours) and practical (30 hours) is performed in local, mostly rural communities, throughout 6 days, from Monday to Saturday. A full day of preparatory seminar, held at the School of Public Health “Andrija Štampar” precedes the field visit. In local setting, students have every evening summing up seminar with reports from morning and afternoon tasks, preparation of health education lectures. The last day is final seminar with course evaluation. Practical work takes place in different health care settings: out-hospital care (community nurses, family medicine, primary paediatrics care, occupational medicine) ; county public health institute (school medicine, social medicine, epidemiology and environmental health) ; local general hospital ; practical health education in schools, kindergartens, retirement homes ; practical with families in their homes and public health field research. Expecting learning outcomes for students considering knowledge are: economic, historic, cultural, ecological, social determinants of community ; community development, organisation and health status as a result and determinant of socioeconomic status ; influence of moral, cultural, social values on health status of individuals ; public health assessment of community needs for health care ; efficiency of public health interventions, critical analysis of organization of local health care system ; preparation of health educational methods in different settings (lectures, small group work, counselling) ; health promotion in community nursing, and inter-sector collaboration in practice. Considering skills, students are required to develop: communication with people where they live, work and go to school ; collaboration with medical professionals and stakeholders in community ; working rapport with public health research subjects ; taking of water samples ; interview techniques ; performance of epidemiologic survey ; organisation and implementation of vaccination programme ; assessment of water supplies ; performance of health education through lectures and group work with healthy and chronically ill individuals ; participation in community based public health programs (in houses, schools, workplaces), assessment of living and working conditions and performance of local health system regular activities. The course has been one of the best evaluated courses at School of medicine in Zagreb. The student’s essays are full of very emotional experiences from the practical, where they felt the real sense of working with people far away from clinics and laboratories.

According to more recent classifications, there are at least two stages to elderly life: Late adulthood or early old age, the age of the so-called young elderly, from sixty five to seventy five years old, and actual old age, the older old age, which begins after seventy five. In order to attempt to define the third age and identify the moment in which adulthood ends and old age begins, we need to refer to a number of elements: chronological age, physical and mental conditions, social role, family role. Physical and mental conditions play a significant role in old age, chronological age clearly discriminates between an adult individual and an elderly person, however, more than the actual age, self-perception and social attitude to that age play an important part. Belonging to the third age is also strongly affected by events known as life markers (such as retirement from work or the experience of becoming a grandparent) [Ripamonti, 2005]. The world of the elderly tends to be rather fuzzy, sometimes overturning all possible definitions and categories to demonstrate a multi-faceted social and personal framework: we come across young elderly in poor health, or very active people in their eighties, and the phenomenon of baby pensioners escapes all kinds of social and personal categorisation. The issue of gender differences in the third age also deserves particular attention; women in fact represent around two thirds of the population between sixty five and seventy five years old, and three quarters of the over-75s. Two fields of theory try to explain the phenomenon of female ageing of the population: genetic theories, and socio-environmental theories. According to genetic theories, the double X chromosome guarantees a richer genetic code to women that that offered to men, including greater resistance to disease, and thus wider prospects for a long life. On the other hand, socio-cultural theories place ageing in relation with the female lifestyle, which is rich in personal relationships and social networks and is characterised by the ability to cover multiple roles and maintain many ties. [Suardi 1993]. Probably an integration of these two approaches could provide a (possibly partial) explanation of this consistent demographic phenomenon. According to Betty Friedan [Friedan 1993] the key element distinguishing the experience of female life from men is that of change. From an historical point of view, the role of women in society has been characterised by discontinuity: the passage from the role of housewife to that of worker during the war, the return to the domestic environment as men returned home and the later re-introduction of women into the world of work, while maintaining the role and tasks linked to the family. The life of women itself is characterised by biological stages that cause great changes and demand consequent re-adaptation: menarche, pregnancy, menopause. Above all retirement and the phenomenon of the “empty nest”, when children leave home, are the events that make male and female old age paths differ. Both of these moments demand re-adaptation, the reconstruction of one’s role and self-image, which is much more difficult for men. Women are able to reinvent themselves, as they are used to covering several roles, if one of these roles is missing the gap is filled by others, their identity is not so closely linked to work as that of men. A further element that promotes quality ageing is the wealth of social relations, and also in this case women have an advantage over men as they tend to enjoy wider and more diversified social networks. They are also more involved in associationism, voluntary work and all other occasions of community life that offer the elderly the chance to lead an active and participatory social life. According to Friedan, women positively deal with old age thanks to a number of typically feminine characteristics, which can be summed up in four key words: relationship, interdependency, change...

The pilot-project "Psychological aspects of use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in elementary education" is conducted by a research group from the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka, Croatia. The main goal was to examine positive and negative aspects of ICT use in two elementary schools that have different levels of ICT integration in the teaching and learning environment. The intention is to continue the systematic tracking of the long-term effects of ICT use on students’ academic achievement, as well as on ICT attitudes of the students, their parents’ and teachers’, and students' motivation. The project has several phases: (1) In the focus groups, teachers (N=37) discussed advantages and disadvantages of ICT use in teaching and learning. (2) The results of the focus group discussions were used to design questionnaires for students, parents, and teachers, assessing the frequency and reasons for use of ICT and attitudes toward ICT. Several scales for assessing different aspects of academic motivation were also adapted (perceived value of school, goal orientation, and self- efficacy). (3) The questionnaires were administered in two schools. While in both schools computers are available to teachers, in one school iPads are used in the classrooms (teachers are trained to teach with iPads and 55% of students have their own iPad and use it for every school subject). A total number of 354 students (5th to 8th grade, aged between 10-14 ; 51% boys), 304 parents (mean age =41, 72 ; 81% female) and 40 teachers (mean age=46 ; 77, 5% female) from both schools participated in the study. Validity and reliability analyses of all used instruments show good psychometric properties. Some preliminary results show that most of the students, parents and teachers use different kinds of ICT equipment (computers, laptops, tablets, mobile phones). Students in the school in which iPads are implemented in classrooms, and who use iPads, have more positive attitues toward ICT and the use of tablet computers in education, compared to those students that do not use iPads. However, when comparing the two schools, students in the school in which iPads are not implemented have a more positive attitude toward the use of tablet computers in education, while teachers have more negative attitudes. There is no difference in parental attitudes toward tablet use in education between those two schools. (4) A follow-up study is going to be conducted at the end of the school year. In addition to previously applied questionnaires, academic achievement will be recorded. This pilot- project serves as a preliminary study for the wider research project that is going to explore integration of ICT in education in a number of schools with different levels of digital maturity in Croatia.

International audience; The completed ERAMIS and the ongoing PROMIS are European Union (EU) Tempus projects for setting up a new Master degree titled “Informatics as a Second Competence” taking as a model a similar existing degree of the University of Grenoble Alpes, France. Both projects can be consideredbig and having quite long implementation periods – more than three years each. There were seventeen partners from eight countries in the ERAMIS project, and there are now twenty one partners including three companies coming from ten countries in the PROMIS project. In both cases, EU partners collaborated with partners from regions that differ culturally, namely, Central Asia and Russia. Although those projects were not the biggest in the Tempus program, they could be classified as large in terms of their budget and the number of partners involved.The core results of the statistical overview of parameters of the Tempus programme projects are presented in this paper. The analysis was performed in two dimensions: project budget and number of partner countries. It allowed classifying ERAMIS and PROMIS projects as large in comparison to other EU Tempus projects. To clarify the context, the short descriptions of both projects are given, followed by the summary of the evaluation of problems encountered by the EU partner project teams. Issues arose from different areas, such as project activities, scheduling, legal procedures, and so on. Some issues were due to the international nature of the project, for example, varying level of language skills, different culture, legislation and ways of handling tasks, work motivation, etc. Leverage came from the people: all teams consisted of academics in the same field. They had approximately the same level of knowledge and skills, used the similar reference works and similar technologies. We consider this isessential for the success of such projects.By pointing out the various issues encountered in these two projects, we aim to raise awareness about the problems that need to be dealt with and planned for in this kind of large projects as to allow others to avoid them or address these issues smoothly.