Data-Based Approach to Educational Programs Quality Management

Цель данной статьи – описание и обоснование подхода к управлению качеством образовательных программ, разработанного и апробированного в Университете ИТМО начиная с 2019 года. В статье представлены основные индикаторы оценки и результаты апробации данного подхода в университете. Основной единицей качества является образовательная программа. Она имеет продолжительный жизненный цикл и отвечает запросам большинства стейкхолдеров университета. С учетом всех особенностей образовательной программы предлагается комплексный набор показателей для оценки ее качества, что дает возможность объективно управлять ею на основе полученных данных. Для анализа жизненного цикла образовательной программы разработан внутренний рейтинг и представлены примеры рекомендаций по его итогам. Описаны преимущества подхода управления образовательными программами, представлены пути по дальнейшему развитию. Статья может быть интересна руководителям и управленческим командам высших учебных заведений, а также исследователям в области высшего образования.The purpose of this article is to describe and justify the approach to assessing the quality of educational programs that have been developed and tested at ITMO University since 2019. The article presents the main indicators of assessment and the results of testing this approach at the university. The main unit of quality is an educational program, as it has a long-life cycle and meets the needs of most stakeholders of the educational organization. Taking into account all the features of an educational program, the authors propose a comprehensive set of indicators to assess its quality, which makes it possible to objectively manage it data-based. In conclusion, for completing the task of analyzing the life cycle of an educational program, the authors present an internal rating of educational programs, concise examples of recommendations based on its results. The advantages of the approach to managing educational programs are described, and ways for further development are presented. The article may be of interest to the managers and management teams of institutions of higher education, as well as to the researchers in this field

Effects of early neonatal proinflammatory stress on the expression of BDNF transcripts in the brain regions of prepubertal male rats

Early postnatal proinflammatory stress provokes behavioral impairments in adulthood; however, underlying mechanisms are still elusive. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays a crucial role in neuroplastic changes in health as well as at pathology. The BDNF gene is transcribed to exon-specific mRNAs and the pattern of their expression depends on stimulus. We suggest that disturbances of exonspecific BDNF mRNA expression in the brain regions after stress induced by proinflammatory stimuli in early postnatal period could be one of the underlying mechanisms of consequent behavioral impairments. Thus, the aim of the study was to investigate the effects of proinflammatory stress in early postnatal ontogeny on the expression of BDNF and the patterns of expression of the BDNF gene in the neocortex and hippocampus of prepubertal male rats. The proinflammatory stress was induced by subcutaneous administration of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to rat pups on postnatal days 3 and 5, while BDNF expression was analyzed in 36-day-old rats. BDNF polypeptide concentration was estimated by means of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, while quantitative polymerase chain reaction followed by reverse transcription was used to detect exon-specific BDNF mRNA expression. The levels of BDNF and transcripts, containing common exon IX were similar in the control and LPS-treated rats. In the rats treated with LPS, the level of BDNF mRNA, containing exon IV, was lower in the neocortex, but not in the hippocampus. No changes in the expression of the transcripts containing exons I and VI were observed in any brain structure studied. We suggest that specific alterations in BDNF expression may be involved in the susceptibility to the development of behavioral impairments of animals subjected to early proinflammatory stress