Course to Digitalization and Openness

At a meeting of the Academic Council of Al-Farabi KazNU, measures to increase openness and transparency of the educational process have been discussed. The issues on introduction of anticorruption standard of the MES RK, reduction of corruption risks and application of modern digital technologies in business processes of University have been discussed during the meeting.

The main report on the agenda was made by the Commissioner for Ethics and Counteracting Corruption Risks of the University, Vice-Rector Sholpan Jamanbalayeva. She highlighted that KazNU, within the framework of the project «University beyond Corruption», has built a corporate ideology based on the introduction of ethical standards and the principle of zero tolerance for any unfair practices among students and teachers. Transparency of services, access to information and control over activities are ensured through the digitalization of all business processes. The E-campus program is being introduced, new methods and technologies for evaluating the activities of the faculty and academic achievements of students are being implemented, measures are being taken to improve the transparency of financial work, and the effectiveness of anti-corruption policy is being monitored. In order to reaffirm the commitment to anti-corruption standards, additional agreements to the employment contract with teachers and staff and to the training contract with students on compliance with anti-corruption policy will be introduced from the new 2020-2021 academic year. As part of the anticorruption complex, the Code of Corporate Governance is being developed, which provides for the principles and responsibilities of members of collegial bodies, the Regulation on Independent Anticorruption Expertise and Public Monitoring of Law Enforcement in KazNU.

Director of the Institute of Information Technologies and Innovative Development of KazNU Erlan Kistaubaev spoke about the project of implementation of blockchain technology to provide cryptographic protection and distributed system for storage of information and official documents. This system will protect against unauthorized access to information and will also help to effectively reduce corruption risks. As the speaker noted, the project will be implemented in three stages. The first three months will be devoted to the study of the problems, methods, models, algorithms of the blockchain technology. The second stage involves the design and development of a document verification information system integrated into an international platform. Finally, there will be also carried out the development of scientific and methodological substantiation of the formation of a digital register for official documents of the process of education in the University with the use of technology blockchains. The project is planned to be completed by the end of 2022.

The participants of the meeting also discussed proposals to expand the list of E-services provided at the University, to improve the efficiency of social interaction with students in online format and ways to improve information transparency through the development of official accounts of KazNU in social networks.

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