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<p>Dear Colleagues,<br>
</p>
<p> Informatics Europe wishes you all a Happy New Year and we hope
you already had a great start in 2020! <br>
</p>
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<p>We are very happy to introduce you to our new <b><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.informatics-europe.org/data/higher-education/">Informatics
Higher Education Data Portal</a></b> - a project of
Informatics Europe created with the goal of providing our
members, the Informatics academic community, policymakers,
industry and other stakeholders a complete and reliable picture
of the state of Informatics (Computer Science, Computing, IT,
ICT) higher education in Europe.</p>
<p>The portal offers user-friendly access to a wealth of
fundamental data such as statistics of<b> students enrolled </b>and
<b>degrees awarded at Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD level</b>,
including <b>gender distribution</b> in absolute numbers and
percentages, both at <b>Research Universities and Universities
of Applied Sciences</b>. A range of qualitative data
complements the statistics presented, including a list of
subjects identifying Informatics programs and a list of
universities and academic units (with direct links to their
websites) offering Informatics higher education in each country.</p>
<p>The portal is one of the most useful and important services
Informatics Europe can offer to its members. It provides plenty
of opportunities for data visualization and in-depth analyses of
key trends, issues, and aspects that need or could be improved
with a better understanding of the higher education system in
the field. <br>
</p>
<p><b>Members of Informatics Europe also have the additional
benefit of having privileged access and download rights for
the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.informatics-europe.org/data/higher-education/download.html">whole
dataset</a>.</b></p>
<p>The central role played by data curation makes the portal
unique, reliable and relevant. Data is collected from national
sources across Europe and a considerable amount of time and
effort is spent in carefully analysing and screening the raw
data. Consulting with academics, active and knowledgeable in the
field in their countries is an integral part of our data
curation process. This quality control allows us to publish
statistics that indeed represent what we, as a community,
understand and recognize as Informatics higher education studies
and programs in Europe. The different national languages and
semantics of the terms used to define the discipline in
different countries was also carefully considered. The portal
was developed by Informatics Europe in collaboration with the <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://www.si.usi.ch/">Software
Institute</a>, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI). <br>
</p>
<p>In previous years, the data presented in the portal has been
shared with the members and the community through the annual
publication of the report series “Informatics Education in
Europe - Institutions, degrees, students, positions, salaries –
Key Data” available <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.informatics-europe.org/working-groups/data-collection-reporting.html">here</a>.
<b>The latest issue of the Key Data Report (2019) has been
recently published and can be <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.informatics-europe.org/component/phocadownload/category/10-reports.html?download=128:informatics-education-europe-data-2013-2018">downloaded
here</a></b>. It complements the statistics presented in the
portal with the detailed description of the different national
higher education systems and much-needed data about academic
titles and salaries across European countries. <br>
</p>
<p>We thank everyone who contributed to find and interpret data at
national level allowing its inclusion in the dataset and
providing an opportunity to make the status of Informatics
education in their countries better known at European level.</p>
<p>If your country is not yet on the portal or the report and you
can help finding and interpreting statistics for your country,
please contact: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:svetlana.tikhonenko@informatics-europe.org">svetlana.tikhonenko@informatics-europe.org</a>.</p>
<p> We kindly ask you to <b>disseminate the news about the portal
in your institution and research community</b> (we have
attached a press release and an infographic to help you with
that).</p>
<p> Thank you and best wishes,<br>
</p>
<p>Franziska Hauffe<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Franziska Hauffe
Communications Specialist
Informatics Europe
Binzmühlestrasse 14/54
8050 Zurich
Switzerland</pre>
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