FUZZY FORMALIZATION AND AUTOMATION OF THE PROCESS OF SPECIAL ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIP DISTRIBUTION IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

The article deals with the vital task of efficient distribution of the scholarship fund during the formation of the budgetary policy at higher educational institutions of Ukraine. The practice of distribution of the scholarship fund of higher educational institutions is analyzed, the existing forms of awarding scholarships to Ukraine’s university students are described. The necessity of taking into account students’ educational and extracurricular achievements, as well as motivational educational factors, during assignment of scholarships was determined, while providing desubjectization of the process of awarding scholarships itself. An idea of the peculiarities of the scholarship fund distribution is represented on the example of the Donbass State Engineering Academy (DSEA). The process of making decisions on the appointment of special scholarships under the conditions of ambiguity of qualitative and quantitative evaluation criteria is considered. The formalization of the distribution process of academic scholarships using the fuzzy sets theory is given. Scholarships are presented in the form of alternative situations, each of which has its own rating value of a potential candidate for a scholarship. The factors influencing the choice of the candidate include academic progress, results of public and scientific activities. The linguistic variables defined on the five-level term-set are determined for each given factor. Trapezoidal membership functions are used for describing the linguistic variables. The results of approbation of the proposed methodology are represented on the example of Intelligent decision support systems department of the DSEA. The fuzzy classification of factors and the folding of the classification levels obtained into the general rating assessment of the candidates as an average weighted for all the indicators involved in the assessment and for all qualitative levels of these indicators were made. The list of candidates for receiving of scholarships according to the procedure proposed by the authors was formed as an example for the Intelligent decision support systems department of the DSEA. The machine-assisted realization of the methodology of special academic scholarships distribution was carried out in the form of a software modulus of the department web-system.