Higher education in Vietnam has applied credit system since 2007. Universities have been developing academic credit system for many years. In fact, along with the change in academic policy, changing the management environment driven by IT is currently a great concern of universities in Vietnam. This paper is conducting a brief review on issues and problems related to academic credit in the higher education in Vietnam, and in term of solving these issues and problems, is proposing the most common model for IT system for academic credit system at universities in Vietnam.
Credit system in higher education was first applied by Harvard University, USA (1872). By the early twentieth century, the credit system was widely applied in most universities in America. This system was then adopted by the United States, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and many other countries. In 1999, 29 countries in the European Union signed the Bologna Declaration to form the "European Higher Education Space" and apply the credit system in the entire system of countries in the European Union. The power of IT is greatly enhanced thanks to communication technology (TT). This means connectivity (either wireless, cell phone technology or over cable) is a key feature that enables access to the Internet and the World Wide Web. These shared platforms have fueled the explosion of social networks and cloud services that turn the Internet into a highly interactive medium and create a new dynamic in the use of computers. As computing power and communication improve, mobile devices play an increasingly important role. An overview of higher education with an ICT approach 1. Information and communication technology (ICT) application in higher education has been deployed and applied in many countries around the world. For Vietnam, along with the policy of promoting the application of ICT in all socio-economic activities. In the field of education and training, ICT is considered as an effective supportive tool for the process of teaching and learning innovation, education management reform, contributing to improving the quality and efficiency of education. ICT enables the creation of digital resources such as digital libraries and digital learning, where students, teachers and professionals can access materials for study and research and course materials. Learn from anywhere at any time 2.
Credit training with many advantages is being implemented in the education system of universities in Vietnam. The most important feature of credit-based training is: focus on learners, continuity; the initiative; Science; practicality, flexibility and flexibility.Credit training with many advantages is being deployed in the education system of universities in Vietnam. The most important features of the credit-based training form are: focus on learners, continuity; the initiative; Science; practicality, flexibility and flexibility. IT plays an important role in supporting learning, teaching and research in university in Vietnam, now is changing to “pure” academic credit system; In perspectives of students, they are increasingly looking forward to having information and materials about their courses credit. Students increasingly bring their own devices (laptops, cell phones and smart devices) to campus. Students increasingly want to be able to work on and off campus and have constant access to materials to support their learning support to course credit; In perspectives of a university, a university needs to have IT infrastructure and applications in a clear and well designed system for supporting academic credit system. A university needs to ensure that on-campus learning spaces are enabled with technology, for example, for simple things like wireless access. A university should have a strategy for all aspects of IT delivery and clear policies for service level agreements on their IT systems. Cloud computing is increasingly used by both educators and students, and university needs to have a clear policy on the relationship between IT systems and the use of cloud computing; Both educatos and students need to develop a new set of digital literacies to harness the potential of technologies to support learning, teaching and research. Therefore a university needs to provide central support in terms of educational technology. Senior managers need to have an awareness of what technologies can offer in terms of learning, teaching and research and be aware of emergent trends in technology developments. However, Senior managers need to be aware of what technology can offer in terms of learning, teaching and research, and be aware of emerging technology development trends.
The article gives some situation information on the application of information technology in credit training in Vietnam universities as a scientific basis to propose management solutions.
In Vietnam, since 1987, academic credit system has been partially applied in the form of course credit for some academic learning modules or topics only. It has a formal implementation since 2001 when the Prime Minister emphasized credit system as a solution to renovate higher education. It is confirmed in the Education Law (2005), which states that education programme shall be implemented based either on school year or on credit accumulation for professional education and higher education. Decision 43/2007/QD-BGD DT on August 15, 2007 "On promulgation of regulation on formal undergraduate education using academic credit system" officially put the credit system into operating in higher education. Thus, in terms of policy, academic programs in universities in Vietnam are now implicitly understandable credit systems.
In term of implementation of the credit system, there are problems and issues raised by academic credit systems. In order to clarify the problem domain for IT as a solution to credit learning, we conduct research on the problems of implementing credit in practice in universities in Vietnam. Problem domain analysis allows to propose an IT model to meet management needs and solve problems related to credit processing.
The issues of credit institutions are presented in groups as follows:
- Organization and activities of teaching and learning;
- Management of students;
- Facilities and materials for credit system;
- Collective activities of students.
The method of investigatigation is reviewing opinions of the credit system in universities over a country, one in mountainous northern area (Tay Bac University), ones are bigger universities in Hanoi (Vietnam National University, Hanoi and Academy of Journalism and Communication) and HCMC (HCMC University of Technology), one in central Vietnam (Hue University) and one in southern province (Cantho Unirversity). There are articles at various timing of credit systems of universities in Vietnam, from 2006 to 2020.
Based on the above mentioned review of issues and problems of implementation of academic credit in universities over the country, (Table 1) there are summarizations as follow:
- Inadequacies in subject registration, class arrangement, credit schedule.
- The problem of teaching methods in the form of credit.
- Proactive and self-study of learners, self-study time management.
- Inadequacies in academic mentors/supervisors in notification and student management.
- Difficulties in facilities for teaching by credit system: classrooms, equipments and learning materials.
- Inadequacies in collective activities of students.
- Calculate the number of hours, fees related to credit learning.
- The continuity and consistency of academic credit programs and timetable by credit system.
The problem-solving approach in credit learning by IT is to build a unified IT environment throughout the school, including IT tools, applications and hardwares to support the operation of credit system, in order towards solving those problems and issues, that mentioned above.
2.2. IT Approach for Credit System in Higher EducationCurrently, most universities in the world and in Vietnam have been being transforming to academic credit system. With the characteristics of the credit system, it requires a comprehensive change in educational management, pedagogical methods and administration in universities. Universities have applied IT tools and systems to enhance teaching and learning management, innovating teaching methods, student management, and school administration.
The current feature of IT is digital transformation, changing from single IT applications or tools and specialized data for building separate business domains, into a unified digital platform from it automatically executes academic functional activities and connects the whole education. Concepts such as technical infrastructure, data integration, shared and automated information processing systems, smart and real-time human-computer interaction systems, allow conducting higher education everytime and everywhere.
Lina María Castro Benavides and others their review paper 2 note dimentions of a digital transformation (DT) in higher education as follow:
Teaching dimension: The DT seen from the teaching dimension has several fronts
• Digital platforms and contents for teaching and learning considered that it was important to use the tools which satisfy contemporary educational standards and methods, first of all, the tools based on digital technology.
• Innovate pedagogical methodologies in digital teaching are not just technical innovations, but rather academic, curricular, organizational and structural innovations 10.
• Teaching administration process has been leveraged the use of technology to provide flexibility in learning and just-in-time training for learners in the efforts to improve both the internal processes of course delivery and enhance the provisions of education quality.
• Software infrastructure is contemplated an agile platform and flexible architecture that could handle adaptive and emergent processes (administrative, teaching, and researching)
Curriculum dimension: This dimension has several views depending on the DT process that has been performed.
• Modernize the curricula which satisfy contemporary educational standards and methods, developing international curricula, finding new ways of delivering content through digital learning and the widening use of ICT technologies 10.
• Flexible curriculum is flexible responsing to the needs of labor market is the main goal of updating the educational program.
• Digital curriculum means that students are increasingly demanding an improvement in the "basics" of their experience, with features such as digitization of administrative processes, unrestricted 24-hour access to all information, and services using multiple platforms or digital curriculum.
Administration dimension: DT strategies is using to improve existing work, to apply changes in value creation, while building new digital models in parallel, or fully digitizing current considering the new demands of the labor market and the growing expectations of students to innovate their experiences regarding learning, teaching, research and management 11.
Business process dimension: DT promotes the re-invention of the institution the transition from related operational procedures to the use of digital technologies to improve, enhance, or replace traditional services with digital ones, to simplify the processes involved in educational service delivery and operational complexity.
The IT architecture in universities includes six main areas of operation, aka payroll and financial accounting, administration of student data, inventory management, personnel records maintenance, library systems and learning management systems. These systems provide following core IT services in an university 12.
(1) The student journey, from an initial enquiry through to graduation. This includes managing of a student’s initial enquiry about courses, application, module selection, monitoring and support for the delivery of a course, assignment handling, examinations and graduation. For on campus students systems are in place for room booking and timetabling. This is usually done through a central IT system, but there may also be local systems for some departments. Courses are delivered and support through an Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) or Learning Management System (LMS). The library provides access to learning resources (both paper-based and digital), these can include learning materials and set texts for course, research journals and multimedia resources.
(2) The research activities are supported through systems for managing and monitoring research applications, research grants and contracts, research finance, publications recording and patents and intellectual property recording.
(3) Financial services include: asset management, accounts payable, accounts receivable, financial reporting, management accounting, management information, payroll, pensions, purchase ordering, goods receipt and invoice processing, tax treasury.
(4) Human resources IT systems cover: recruitment, recording of staff employment activity and history and recording of staff training history.
(5) Residential and commercial services include: application, allocation, control and financial management of student accommodation and, where appropriate, provision of conference services and the delivered catered service.
2.3. IT Platform for Credit System at a University in VietnamIT in higher educaion, in general, including infrastructure (i.e. hardware equipments and networks such as presenting equipment, video conferencing, computer systems and interconnecting networks and Internet connections), and software systems (i.e. management and learning tools and information systems with various databases), that support funtions in academic credit system in universities.
Based on analysis in points 1 and 2 above, we are trying to propose components of IT model to support credit-based mechanisms for universities in Vietnam. This proposal, in fact, is the most common IT model for operating the credit system. When deployed, it will adapt depending on the specific conditions of each school with the relevant characteristics and detailed requirements.
A learning management system (LMS) can be defined as a set of computer software tools specifically designed to manage the teaching and learning process. This system allows organizing, managing, monitoring, assigning, evaluating, reporting all the education contents and resources, towards the overall management of the activities of academic credit program. The value of the LMS system is its abilities to create an online environment, apply various rich applications through online tools (i.e. Web 2.0) to serve teaching and learning purposes of the university. This system is usually deployed on a computer network that allows many participants to use it at the same time without the barriers of geography and time.
A LMS basically has the following features:
- Registration/Enrollment: Students register and enroll through the LMS. The management of students is also through the web environment of LMS.
- Timetabling: Create and schedule courses and academic program to meet institution’s and individual requirements of the credit system.
- Distribution: Distributing online learning content, assigments, and other learning resources by credit modules.
- Tracking: Track students' learning progress and create result reports.
- Information exchange: Exchange information by communication and collaboration tools such as chat, forum, e-mail, e-portfolio.
- Assessment: Provides the ability to test and evaluate students' learning outcomes.
In practise, there are typical softwares for LMS such as Moodle 12, EDX 13, Blackboard 14 allows management and deployment of teaching and credit-based activities effectively:
- Manage learning content with diverse learning resources.
- Manage students for credit-based learning classes in both online and offline forms.
- Create and manage various learning assessment forms such as exam banks, quiz or multi-choice questions (MCQ).
- Create and manage forums for information sharing between students and educators (mentors, supervisors).
- In conjunction with other social and collaboration softwares (i.e. Facebook and Zalo), create and manage activities of students.
If the LMS is the core system in providing academic activities, then there are a variety of tools to support teaching and learning. There are increasingly academics are also incorporating other cloud-based services, such as the dropbox tool for sharing files (Figure 1).
Education technologies (Edutech) include hardware (i.e. interactive boards, tablets, handheld devices) and softwares such as MatLab 15, GeoGebra 16, Crorodile, simulation tools, educational games, interactive social applications and 3D Virtual Reality (VR and Augmented Reality (AR) tools.
Using tools of video communication based on Internet connection to conducting online classes. This is situation that has been appeared due to 2019-Covid epidemic. Software like Zoom, MS Teams, Google Meets or Jitsi Meet all are an easy, reliable cloud platform for video/web conferencing, chat and webinars. With video meetings, phone calls, whiteboarding, and annotation on personal collaboration device, these tools support the requirements of credit-based courses effectivelly (Figure 2).
Using technology for student assessment. The examples are HotPotatos 17 for test questionnaires, BrainBench 18 and Gmetrix 19 for online test tools, profile tools (ePorfolio) for student records.
This is indicated by MoET’s plan for IT application for period 2012-2025, that guides to establish shared learning and teaching databases (i.e. databases for educators, teachers, students, facilities, electronic lectures, online question banks, electronic data for management activities), including the following:
- Open Education Resource (OER), including textbooks, electronic lectures, presentations, researches, videos and images, shared for public use. OER repository, which provides free access to learning materials or research data management systems, which allow the users to store information on publications, professional activities and working relationships.
- Multimedia lecture stores, digital learning, virtual experiments for students, teachers, and scientific researchers.
There are three main areas of activity supporting the academic planning and resource allocation: requirements identification (identifying all requirements for teaching and learning activities), scheduling (identifying date and time of activities) and location allocation (allocation of rooms and other resources to activities).
The softwares of training management that implicated in most universities have met these arears of activities. The examples of in-house or commercial these software in Vietnam universities could listed like as UniSoft-Thien An, UI-CMC, EduSoft.
This is the student management system and is at the core of the credit learning management functions, with the following features:
- Handling requests from students
- Handling the admissions process
- Enrolling new students and storing academic option choices
- Automatically creating class and teacher schedules
- Handling records of examinations, assessments, marks, grades and academic progression
- Maintaining records of absences and attendance
- Recording communications with students
- Maintaining discipline records
- Providing statistical reports
- Maintenance student’s dorm details
- Communicating student details to parents
- Special Education / Individual Education Plan services
- Human resources services
- Accounting and budgeting services related to students
- Student health records
This system is closely linked to the learning management systems and the school's financial system.
Library systems cover all aspects of the management of library materials both physical and digital. This includes the following areas:
- Acquisitions (ordering, receiving, and invoicing materials)
- Cataloguing (classifying and indexing materials)
- Circulation (lending materials to patrons and receiving them back)
- Serials (tracking magazine and newspaper holdings)
- The public interface for users.
Some typical library software today: commercial systems such as ExLibris 20, Innovative 21; open source or free to use such as Koha 22.
The core of university’s administration, the financial and accounting system contains a wide range of functions such as purchase and sale administration, fixed assets, ledger, financial statements, revenue, debt. Current popular accounting and financial management such as MISA, F@st Accounting.
The paper has presented contents related to the IT-based approach for a academic credit university in Vietnam. Starting from problems and issues of academic credit implementation in universities in Vietnam, the paper goes through an analysis of how IT factors play important role to support the all activities in universities, including teaching, learning, researching and admistration. Based on the analysis, the paper is proposing one general structure of IT system in an typical university in Vietnam, that supports academic credit system.
| [1] | Gráinne Conole, 2012, ICT and general administration in educational institutions, IITE Policy Brief, UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, ©UNESCO, 5/2012. https://iite.unesco.org/files/policy_briefs/pdf/en/ict_and_general.pdf. | ||
| In article | |||
| [2] | Lina María Castro Benavides, Johnny Alexander Tamayo Arias, Martín Darío Arango Serna, John William Branch Bedoya, Daniel Burgos. 2020, Digital Transformation in Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Literature Review. Sensors, 20, 3291. | ||
| In article | View Article PubMed | ||
| [3] | Nguyễn Thị Huệ, 2020, Một số giải pháp đổi mới phương pháp dạy học trong quá trình đào tạo theo học chế tín chỉ cho người học sư phạm trường Đại học Tây Bắc, Đại học Tây Bắc (in Vietnamese). (Some solutions to renovate teaching methods in the process of education under credit system for pedagogic learners Tay Bac University), Article Taybac university website, https://fss.utb.edu.vn. | ||
| In article | |||
| [4] | Trần Xuân Bình, 2020, Đào tạo theo học chế tín chỉ tại trường Đại học Khoa học, Đại học Huế - Những thách thức và triển vọng, 2020, Sociology, Đại học Huế (in Vietnamese). (Educating in course credit at University of Science, Hue University - Challenges and Prospects). https://sociologyhue.edu.vn/blog/post/22206. | ||
| In article | |||
| [5] | Trần Thanh Ái, 2010, Đào tạo theo hệ thống tín chỉ: các nguyên lý, thực trạng và giải pháp, tham luận? Hội nghị toàn quốc đào tạo theo học chế tín chỉ tổ chức tại Đại học Sài Gòn, 5/2010, tr 42-53 (in Vietnamese). (Education according to the credit system: principles, current conditions and solutions). | ||
| In article | |||
| [6] | Nguyễn Thị Thúy Huệ, 2015, Việc chuyển đổi hình thức đào tạo từ niên chế sang tín chỉ ở Học viện Báo chí và Tuyên truyền, Tạp chí Lý luận chính trị và Truyền thông số tháng 3/2015 (in Vietnamese). (The transformation of training form from annual-based to credit-based in the Academy of Journalism and Communication). Academy of journalism and comunication. | ||
| In article | |||
| [7] | Lâm Quang Thiệp, 2006, Về việc áp dụng học chế tín chỉ trên thế giới và ở Việt Nam, Trang Tin tức Sự kiện, Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội (in Vietnamese). (Regarding the application of credit system in the world and in Vietnam). https://thongtinphapluatdansu.edu.vn/2007/12/29/5264/. | ||
| In article | |||
| [8] | Bhattacharya and Sharma, 2014, Information and Communication Technology in Higher Education in India: Challenges and Opportunities, International Journal of Information and Computation Technology, 4(5), pp. 513-518. | ||
| In article | |||
| [9] | Bond, M.; Marín, V.I.; Dolch, C.; Bedenlier, S.; Zawacki-Richter, O, 2018, Digital transformation in German higher education: student and teacher perceptions and usage of digital media. Int. J. Educ. Technol. High. Educ., 15, 48. | ||
| In article | View Article | ||
| [10] | Faria JA, Nóvoa H., 2020, Digital Transformation at the University of Porto. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Exploring Services Science, Porto, Portugal, 5-7 February 2020. | ||
| In article | View Article | ||
| [11] | Sandeep Singh Buttar, 2016, Ict in higher education, International Journal of Social Sciences, 2(1), pp. 1686-1696. | ||
| In article | View Article | ||
| [12] | https://moodle.com/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [13] | https://www.edx.org/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [14] | https://www.blackboard.com/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [15] | https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html | ||
| In article | |||
| [16] | https://www.geogebra.org/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [17] | https://hotpot.uvic.ca/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [18] | https://www.brainbench.com/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [19] | https://www.gmetrix.net/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [20] | https://exlibrisgroup.com/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [21] | https://www.iii.com/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [22] | https://koha-community.org/. | ||
| In article | |||
Published with license by Science and Education Publishing, Copyright © 2021 Trinh Thi Thu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit
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| [1] | Gráinne Conole, 2012, ICT and general administration in educational institutions, IITE Policy Brief, UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, ©UNESCO, 5/2012. https://iite.unesco.org/files/policy_briefs/pdf/en/ict_and_general.pdf. | ||
| In article | |||
| [2] | Lina María Castro Benavides, Johnny Alexander Tamayo Arias, Martín Darío Arango Serna, John William Branch Bedoya, Daniel Burgos. 2020, Digital Transformation in Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Literature Review. Sensors, 20, 3291. | ||
| In article | View Article PubMed | ||
| [3] | Nguyễn Thị Huệ, 2020, Một số giải pháp đổi mới phương pháp dạy học trong quá trình đào tạo theo học chế tín chỉ cho người học sư phạm trường Đại học Tây Bắc, Đại học Tây Bắc (in Vietnamese). (Some solutions to renovate teaching methods in the process of education under credit system for pedagogic learners Tay Bac University), Article Taybac university website, https://fss.utb.edu.vn. | ||
| In article | |||
| [4] | Trần Xuân Bình, 2020, Đào tạo theo học chế tín chỉ tại trường Đại học Khoa học, Đại học Huế - Những thách thức và triển vọng, 2020, Sociology, Đại học Huế (in Vietnamese). (Educating in course credit at University of Science, Hue University - Challenges and Prospects). https://sociologyhue.edu.vn/blog/post/22206. | ||
| In article | |||
| [5] | Trần Thanh Ái, 2010, Đào tạo theo hệ thống tín chỉ: các nguyên lý, thực trạng và giải pháp, tham luận? Hội nghị toàn quốc đào tạo theo học chế tín chỉ tổ chức tại Đại học Sài Gòn, 5/2010, tr 42-53 (in Vietnamese). (Education according to the credit system: principles, current conditions and solutions). | ||
| In article | |||
| [6] | Nguyễn Thị Thúy Huệ, 2015, Việc chuyển đổi hình thức đào tạo từ niên chế sang tín chỉ ở Học viện Báo chí và Tuyên truyền, Tạp chí Lý luận chính trị và Truyền thông số tháng 3/2015 (in Vietnamese). (The transformation of training form from annual-based to credit-based in the Academy of Journalism and Communication). Academy of journalism and comunication. | ||
| In article | |||
| [7] | Lâm Quang Thiệp, 2006, Về việc áp dụng học chế tín chỉ trên thế giới và ở Việt Nam, Trang Tin tức Sự kiện, Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội (in Vietnamese). (Regarding the application of credit system in the world and in Vietnam). https://thongtinphapluatdansu.edu.vn/2007/12/29/5264/. | ||
| In article | |||
| [8] | Bhattacharya and Sharma, 2014, Information and Communication Technology in Higher Education in India: Challenges and Opportunities, International Journal of Information and Computation Technology, 4(5), pp. 513-518. | ||
| In article | |||
| [9] | Bond, M.; Marín, V.I.; Dolch, C.; Bedenlier, S.; Zawacki-Richter, O, 2018, Digital transformation in German higher education: student and teacher perceptions and usage of digital media. Int. J. Educ. Technol. High. Educ., 15, 48. | ||
| In article | View Article | ||
| [10] | Faria JA, Nóvoa H., 2020, Digital Transformation at the University of Porto. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Exploring Services Science, Porto, Portugal, 5-7 February 2020. | ||
| In article | View Article | ||
| [11] | Sandeep Singh Buttar, 2016, Ict in higher education, International Journal of Social Sciences, 2(1), pp. 1686-1696. | ||
| In article | View Article | ||
| [12] | https://moodle.com/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [13] | https://www.edx.org/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [14] | https://www.blackboard.com/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [15] | https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html | ||
| In article | |||
| [16] | https://www.geogebra.org/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [17] | https://hotpot.uvic.ca/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [18] | https://www.brainbench.com/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [19] | https://www.gmetrix.net/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [20] | https://exlibrisgroup.com/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [21] | https://www.iii.com/ | ||
| In article | |||
| [22] | https://koha-community.org/. | ||
| In article | |||
