Gale’s Academic Databases

The article presents an evaluation of social care quality following the EQUASS methodology. The evaluation was carried out considering the aspects of institutional care reform and factors of intersectoral collaboration and partnership between organizations providing social services which are important for the spread of good practice, more effective institution management and optimization of state resource use. In addition, the article discusses the requirements for social care institutions‘ service quality, analyzes the main models for service quality assessment applied in Lithuania and the EU. The research has shown that based on the evaluation of researchsubjects, the social care institutions‘ service quality is quite high. The quality of services could be improved by eliminating the weaknesses of intersectoralcollaboration.

Cases of large amounts of data and high numbers of criteria for evaluation of socio-economic objects are rather frequent. Evaluation can comprise thousands of entries of da ta and dozens of different criteria. Quantitative methods of processing large amounts of data could be classified into two broad categories: statistical methods and multiple criteria decision aid (MCDA) methods. Statistical methods impose a number of rather strong limitations on data. In contrast, multiple criteria evaluation methods can deal with ill-defined problems and with multi-dimensional data. Results yielded by statistical methods can be comprised by specialists, while results yielded by the MCDA methods are specifically desi gned for decision-makers. The MCDA methods provide results in the form of ranking of alternatives by their preference to decision-makers of various backgrounds. Even if is a convenient way, it is not well-informativ e. In the paper, various techniques of choosing the most important criteria, of building a hierarchy of criteria, of retrieval of results of evaluation broadening usage of multiple criteria methods are proposed, making emphasis on cases with large amounts of data.

Today’s students represent a new, Web generation who has grown up surrounded by digital technology, where the ubiquitous communication is a matter of course (Prensky, 2001). Activities prevailing in modern learning process are communication, knowledge management and mastering new technologies. Broader opportunities for the new generation to access education and communication are the main reasons for the growing use of the new Information Society Technologies (ISTs): social networks, blogs, wikis, communities’ bookmarks, messaging and others (Redecker et al., 2010). Thus, advancement of the knowledge age, where lifelong learning is a necessity, guidance in a new learning paradigm, the European dimension in education are the factors that determine the relevance of new ways of teaching and learning adapted to students’ specific ways of thinking and based on new IST. So, IST application in teaching/learning process implies not only new opportunities, but also challenges for the teacher: there is a need for the competence, enabling efficient application of IST in teaching/learning process while seeking educational aims. This article aims to identify teachers’ use of ISTs, their attitudes in respect to the IST use, encountered pitfalls and barriers.