Complicated Adaptive Systems as a Way to Improve Higher Education

Abstract

The aspiration to constant economic wellbeing and intensive transformation of the scientific world detects a problem of adaptation in high professional education (HPE). The HPE system built in the socio-economic structure reacts with a delay to changes in the environment. In the article we claim that HPE systems have features of bio-systems: self-preservation and adequate response to external stimuli. It is supposed that this delay can be overcome if we insert into the system the elements which can improve its adaptability. As the quantitative evaluation of the system gives no grounds to the model construction, our study offers a new concept of high professional education model building. To make a diagnostics of the HPE system and to create a model of HPE adaptation to the environmental challenges we use the method of fuzzy logics, comprising a base of rules and membership functions. The proposed algorithm of fuzzy output is based on the expert assessment data of the Russian Association of Engineering Universities received during the accreditation of engineering specialties in 10 universities of Russia.