Plenary Lecture
Relational Databases Used for Exploring Human Sciences in the E-Learning Context
Professor Mirela Voicu
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
West University of Timisoara
Romania
E-mail: mirela.voicu@feaa.uvt.ro
Abstract: Today, online learning is increasing strongly. The current IT hardware and software tools are capable to provide the necessary support for developing online courses in the context of different business or academic globalization. In this paper we point out some ideas about the cloud computing impact on online learning and some aspects on academic globalization, including the differences which appear between different sciences. The success of online courses is not limited only to performance of the hardware and software tools. These things may be necessary but they are not sufficient. To guarantee the success of an online course, the teaching methods also are very important. If we build attractive courses, we can attract students. There is no monopoly in online learning. Every day a new competitor may appear and we must keep this in mind at each moment of our activity. Only the highest quality of an online course can help us to remain in the online learning market. The teaching quality can be displayed in various ways. For example, in the case of human sciences, e-learning tools can enable some explorations which would not be possible otherwise. In this paper we highlight the possibility of exploring human sciences, using relational databases.
Brief Biography of the Speaker: Mirela-Catrinel Voicu was born in Romania. In 1995, she graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, West University of Timisoara. She received the MSc degree in Applied Mathematics, Informatics in Economy and Computer Sciences from the West University of Timisoara. She followed a training course for PhD thesis at the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies, Paris, France. She received her PhD in 2001 from the University of Timisoara, Romania (with the "Cum laude" distinction) and from the University of Paris 13, France (with the "Très honorable avec félicitations" distinction). Currently she is a Professor at the Department of Business Information Systems, within the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, West University of Timisoara, Romania, where, since 1995, she has held several academic positions. Her activity includes Programming and Internet Programming, Informatics in Economy, Databases, OOP, Data structures. She has 85 papers in conference proceedings or refereed journals (from these papers, 32 have been presented or published abroad). She has published 8 books (1 book in France, 2 book in Germany and 6 books in Romania). She is a reviewer and a member in international program committee of various WSEAS conferences from abroad, reviewer at "Journal of Knowledge, Communications and Computing Technologies", member in the teams of 9 research projects (one of which is international) and project manager for one research project. Since 2002, she is a member of INFOREC (Romanian Association for Economic Informatics Training Promotion), since 2005, she is a member of WSEAS (World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society) and since 2009, she is a member of SCT (Society for Computing Technologies).