International education in information technology

We are developing a model of international education in Information Technology, the concrete realization of which is the International Master's Program in Information Technology (IMPIT) oriented for bachelor-level students from Russia and Czech Republic.The program has been running since 1998 and is realized commonly by three Eastern Finland universities: Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT), University of Joensuu and University of Kuopio. The 2-years long advanced level studies of the program consist of a combination of courses in data processing and telecommunication.After one year of intensive theoretical studies the students are recruited to companies in Finland for full-time working and master thesis elaboration. In a larger scale the program aims at creating wide cooperation in the fields of education, research and business with Russia and especially with the St. Petersburg region.Relying on the experience gained from the so far three program cycles, in this poster we seek to give a general overview of the development and current status of our model which we have seen to grow into what might be called a working interchange between three European countries: Finland, Russia and Czech Republic. Based on our view that a lot of emphasis has to be put on the students' opinions and experience of the program, we present the results and conclusions drawn out of the feedback gathered from the students of all three cycles (1999-2000, 2000-2002 and 2001-2003) in the end of October 2001.Combining our earlier experience with the recently gathered data, we present the conclusions for further development of our model pointing out its strengths and weaknesses and bringing forth suggestions on development and applicability of our model in the future.