From Information Openness To Information Policy Of Educational Organizations

Abstract

Over the past five years, a large-scale task in the field of information openness of educational organizations has been carried out on the territory of the Russian Federation. Almost every school, kindergarten, institution of additional education of children now have their official websites. At the same time, the information openness of organizations cannot be reduced only to the presentation of official information about the activities of the educational organization. That is through the formation of information resources of various formats, which can be both individual sites and information portals of educational organizations, including personal sites of teachers, personal sites of collective subjects of activity, provides an expansion of the representation of educational organizations in the public space of the Internet and forms a public image of the educational organization in the eyes of users of information about the activities of the educational organization. The article gives an idea of various aspects of information openness of an educational organization and shows that the effective solution of the problems of information openness is associated with a new area of competence – the design and implementation of information policy of an educational organization that determines the value meaning and target objectives of public information and communication activities of the educational organization on the Internet. The article presents approaches to the identification of standard, key and leading competencies in the new public information and communication activities for educational organizations in terms of information openness.

Keywords: Information opennesseducational organizationinformation policy

Introduction

Information openness of educational organizations is a response to the challenge of modern trends in the development of education in the information and networking era. Representation of educational organizations on the Internet has become real fact over the past decade. In the process of implementation of such a large-scale task, considerable experience has been accumulated, various approaches and solutions have been developed both at the levels of the subjects of the Russian Federation and municipalities, and in the educational organizations themselves.

Problem Statement

In the process of solving the problem of information openness of educational organizations, there is a trend associated with the narrowing of the presentation of the problems of information openness to one-sided information of participants of educational relations and relations in the field of education on the activities of the educational organizations, enshrined in the state requirements for the official websites of educational organizations in the information and telecommunications network "Internet".

This trend is compounded, by the fact, that in the practice of many educational organizations outside the attention of the management are issues of coverage and presentation on the Internet of a diverse palette of educational, pedagogical and managerial activities of the educational organization. Such information is not included in the required regulatory content, but it contributes to the formation of the specifics of the "individual" of each educational organization.

Research Questions

Identify the key and leading competencies in the new public information and communication activities for educational organizations in terms of information openness.

Purpose of the Study

• Analyze ideas about various aspects of information openness of the educational organization.

• To find an effective solution to the problem of information openness of educational organization.

Research Methods

In the course of work used methods of problem-oriented analysis, design methods competence, didactic-andragogical knowledge management methods, the methodology of system-activity approach, methodology, competence approach.

Findings

Information openness as a new phenomenon inherent in the current century is a multifaceted phenomenon that can be viewed from different perspectives: both as state requirements for organizations, and as an increasing need of society for open information, and as a condition of social interaction and as a resource of social trust (figure 1 ).

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In the last decade, in the mental settings of a large part of the heads of educational organizations, information openness is perceived as a set of state requirements for educational organizations that are obliged to place on their official websites a normative list of information about their activities (Federal Law FZ-273 from 29.12.2012).

At the same time, as a rule, it is overlooked that information openness acts primarily as an increasing social need to obtain a wide range of open and accessible information about the activities of educational organizations. And the scope of information needs of society and professional community, constantly expanding, cannot be limited to the presentation of only official information about the activities of the educational organization.

Information openness as access to diverse information about the educational institutions not only defines the specifics of the current environment in which now operates every school, kindergartens, institutions of additional education, etc. Information openness is considered as a condition that forms the basis of social interaction and social communications, mediated by information that is significant for the participants of joint activities in the educational organizations and for all who feel their involvement in education in a particular educational organization, in the district, municipality, region, in the country as a whole.

At the same time, information openness is the most important resource of social trust. Considering the relationship between information openness and trust, Dzyaloshinsky (2002) builds a chain of concepts that should be guided today: information openness — trust — social partnership — joining forces — effective problem solving — sustainable development.

Thus, information openness, being a resource of social trust, in turn, becomes the most important prerequisite for the formation of participativeness, involvement, interest and motivation of participants in educational relations in joint activities aimed at uniting the efforts of management, teachers, parents and students in solving important common problems and joint resolution of problems arising in the activities of the educational organizations.

As practice shows, the implementation of the tasks of information openness of the educational organization at its initial stage since the introduction of the new Law on education in the Russian Federation at the end of 2012 was focused on achieving compliance with regulatory requirements for official websites of educational organizations (Government Resolution №582 from 10.07.2013) (figure 2 ).

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It should be emphasized that such a restriction as the concentration of efforts of the management of educational organizations to solve the problems of the creation and operation of official sites has played a positive role. This made it possible to carry out a complex task throughout the country and to ensure that by 2019 almost all of the more than 140,000 General education organizations, pre-school educational organizations and institutions of additional education of children were able to create their official information resources on the Internet (Regions of Russia. Socio-economic indicators. Statistical compilation, 2018).

Undoubtedly, the administrative resource of the education management system, manifested in the formulation of tasks and control of the requirements for information openness of the educational organization, contributed to the solution of such a problem for 5 years since the adoption of the new Law on education in the Russian Federation.

Thus, it can be stated that the solution of the problem of information openness of educational organizations in terms of their official (normative required) information is generally fulfilled.

At the same time, the legislative task of information openness in no way restricts educational organizations in the number of created information resources that provide information about their activities on the Internet, but only regulates issues related to the mandatory placement of information about the educational organization on the official website.

However, the leadership of most educational institutions successfully cope with the normative task of information transparency through the official websites of educational organization does not see the future prospects of the extension of the tasks of information openness in excess of the regulatory defined.

On the one hand, this state of Affairs is developing in those educational organizations in which managers do not consider it necessary to go beyond the tasks emanating from higher management systems and are not motivated to expand the information openness of the educational organization.

On the other hand, the definition of the area of new tasks of information openness becomes an independent choice only for those educational organizations that feel the need and see the need for a wider public representation of information about their activities on the Internet.

However, despite the positive "motivational shift" of educational organizations as collective subjects of activity, the real state of Affairs with access to new horizons of problems of information openness of the educational organization is limited to local manifestations in the practice of the education system.

The desire to expand the boundaries of information openness is demonstrated by those few educational organizations in the country, which can rightly be called the pioneers of the development of new practices in the new sphere of education of public information and communication activities on the Internet.

We are talking about the experience of creating information portals of educational organizations, which, along with the official website of the educational organization presents personal sites of teachers, personal sites of collective subjects of the educational organization (sites of groups, classes, methodical associations), thematic sites (museums, libraries, literary almanacs, etc.).

The analysis of this advanced practice shows that educational organizations, the first to pave new ways in solving the problems of expanding information openness, are still at a stage that can be conventionally called the stage of accumulation of information resources of the educational organization and the increment of its presence in the Internet space.

At the same time, despite these positive changes in the practice of innovative for educational organizations development of information technologies of site building and creation of information resources of different orientation, it is necessary to pay attention to the possible risks. They are connected with the fact that the solution of the problems of expanding information openness cannot be effective if they are based only on resource and technological approaches without relying on value and semantic and target activities.

In other words, the lack of value-semantic guidelines and the target orientation of activities can lead to the senselessness of work on the creation of sites of the educational organization, which can be defined as "sites for the sake of sites", which, in fact, reduces the task of information openness to the fact of placing information in the public domain.

In order to avoid detailed risks, educational organizations will have to master a new area of competence related to the design and implementation of information policy in public information and communication activities on the Internet.

According to Popov (2003), information policy is a special sphere of people's life related to the reproduction and dissemination of information that meets the interests of the state and civil society, and aimed at ensuring creative, constructive dialogue between them and their representatives.

The concept of "information policy" is a "subject-oriented" term that defines through the subjects of this policy activities aimed at harmonizing the goals and ways to achieve them at the level of state, municipal and internal management.

According to Nisnevich (1999), the state information policy should be considered as a set of goals that reflect national interests in the information sphere, strategies, tactics, tasks of public administration, management decisions and methods of their implementation, developed and implemented by the state authorities to regulate and improve both the processes of information interaction in all spheres of life of society and the state, and the processes of ensuring such interaction.

Divisenko (2004) suggests under the information policy of municipalities to understand the activities of municipal authorities as a subject about the implementation of communication interactions with the social environment both within and outside the considered type of regional entities.

The need to address information policy issues at the level of internal management is becoming increasingly relevant and is linked to many factors, among which the increasing role of information and communication activities in organizational development is a priority.

According to Dzyaloshinsky (2014), commercial, governmental and non-governmental organizations, who understand the importance of information and communication activities, is currently beginning to review their approaches to the formation of their information policy. And this is not a whim, it is a vital necessity due to global changes that significantly affect communication activities in General and information support for the functioning of the organization and its projects, in particular.

Modern trends in internal development affect the nature of external and internal interactions of educational organizations. The specificity of educational organizations is determined by the fact that the leading educational activity that implements the tasks of training, education and development of children is associated not only with professional activities in the organization, but also carried out in the process of joint activities with students and their parents, and is formed in a specific socio-cultural environment of the municipality and the region.

Based on the General orientation of information policy and its features related to the specifics of educational organizations, value-semantic "navigators" of information policy of the educational organization are:

-focus on the needs of society to be informed on a wide range of issues of the educational organization;

- creation of conditions of social interaction mediated by open and accessible information necessary for participants of joint activities in the educational organization;

- and the formation of information and motivational environment of social trust as a key element of socio-cultural educational space (figure 3 ).

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Thus, the sphere of interests of information policy includes all aspects of information openness, which, in turn, becomes one of the key tasks of a meaningful and targeted information policy, designed and implemented in the educational organization.

Offering to consider the information policy as a new area of competence of the management of the educational organization, caused by the needs to expand the tasks of information openness, the following areas of its implementation are highlighted:

- determination of the need for information on the activities of the educational organization coming from different categories of users: participants in educational relations and participants in relations in the field of education;

- formation of orientation, structure and content of information in compliance with the requirements of the legislation and the implementation of social, educational and professional needs in informing the participants of educational relations;

- selection of effective technologies for informing participants of joint activities and achievement of motivating effects of delivering information to different categories of users through the information resources of the educational organization posted on the Internet;

- timely, impartial and competent assessment of the quality of information resources and the solution of problems of quality management of information resources of the educational organization (Ovchinnikova & Asmolova, 2019).

At the same time, the successful solution of problems of expansion of information openness and design of purposeful information policy is connected not only with activity of the management of the educational organization, but also with readiness and ability of the educational organization as collective subject of activity to statement and the solution of tasks of public information and communication activity of educational organization on the Internet.

In this regard, educational organizations face a difficult task of identification, development and development of a system of competencies in this area of activity of the educational organization.

Presenting three types of competencies of organizations, Bazarov (2005) considers it necessary for management to identify each of them, highlighting:

-standard competence (ability of the organization to solve typical tasks for this type of activity);

-key competencies (ability of the organization to solve innovative tasks for this type of activity);

-leading competence (the ability of the organization to create new types of professional activities).

This typology is certainly applicable to the practice of public information and communication activities of educational organizations. At the same time, educational organizations cannot independently, without appropriate scientific and methodological support and support to perform the difficult task of identifying and designing their competencies in accordance with this typology.

Therefore, the specialists of Federal Institute of Education Development Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration are developing the competencies of the educational organization in public information and communication activities, according to which the following interrelated areas of standard, key and leading competencies are determined.

Conclusion

The area of standard competencies of the education organization is formed in accordance with the direction of tasks related to ensuring compliance with state requirements for information openness, implemented through the official websites of the educational organization as an invariant component of information resources of the educational organization on the Internet.

The area of core competencies of the educational organization is associated with the development of information technologies of site building by teachers and employees of the educational organization and is formed in accordance with the objectives of expanding the variable component of information resources of the educational organization, including the creation of an information portal of the educational organization, combining personal sites of teachers, personal sites of collective subjects of the educational organization (sites of groups, classes, methodical associations) and thematic sites in various areas of the educational organization.

The area of leading competences of the educational organization correlates with the tasks of design and implementation of information policy of educational organizations, purposefully forming a system of information resources on the Internet as a developing environment of information opportunities, social interaction and social trust of participants in educational relations in the implementation of the objectives of educational policy of the educational organization.

Thus, mastering and implementing in practice the standard, key and leading competence of the educational organization in public information and communication activities on the Internet, the management and teachers of the educational organization contribute to the formation of the image of their school (kindergarten, institutions of additional education of children, etc.) as a competent organization, successfully developing in conditions of information openness.

Acknowledgments

Research carried out in the research work of the Federal Institute of Education Development RANEPA "18.09. Development and testing of competency models for professional and personal growth of the system of administrative and teaching staff on areas of competence, aimed at promoting information policy", commissioned by the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration on 2019.

References

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