Project:

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP FOR INNOVATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Programme:
ERASMUS PLUS, ACTION KA2: COOPERATION FOR INNOVATION AND THE EXCHANGE OF
GOOD PRACTICES

Document Information:

Business Simulation Software

Business Simulation Software (BSS)

Intellectual output form
Project reference No.
Evaluation
Intellectual output Identification NoO5 Report
Dissemination level Freely available in electronic form
Status
Date
University of Economics and Culture
Submitted to the coordinator
21/12/2018
Authors Jelena Titko
Contributors Edgars Cerkovskis, Oksana
Lentjusenkova

1. BSS TESTING AT EKA

During the project period two business scenarios for Business Simulation software (BSS) were
developed by EKA staff members:
1. Ice Cream Production (created by Edgars Cerkovskis)
2. Staff training (created by Oksana Lentjusenkova)

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Staff Training
Goal of the simulation: decide what staff will be trained, selecting appropriate type of training,
duration of training, place and teacher.
Student competence to be developed: decision making process in Human Resource Management
Description:

Fig. 1. Business scenario “Staff training” - BSS

Choice 1. Staff selection – administrative staff/ programmers/ sales managers

Choice 2. Type of training – seminars/ specific training/ course of lectures
Choice 3. Duration of training – 4 hours/ 1 days/ 2 days
Choice 4. Place of Training – in/out of office
Choice 5. Tutor – domestic expert /foreign expert / University professor

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 Fig. 2. Part of the decision tree for the business scenario “Staff training”

The simulation “Staff Training” was tested in February 2018 by 6 students of the Master study
programme “Business management” within the course “Management of Intellectual Capital”.
Ice Cream Production
Goal of the simulation: decide about the place, equipment, price and marketing activities to start
a production and selling business in Latvia.
Student competence to be developed: decision making process in Entrepreneurship.
Description:

Fig. 3. Business scenario “Ice Cream Production” - BSS

Choice 1. Select the city to start a business – Riga (capital)/ Jurmala (resort)/ Saulkrasti
Choice 2. Purchasing an equipment – 3 types, criteria: price/ power/ recycling options/ cost of
raw materials
Choice 3. Purchasing raw materials – criteria: price and volume
Choice 4. Ice cream price
Choice 5. Advertising – criterion: expenses

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The simulation “Ice cream production” was tested by EKA Bachelor students in April 2018 and
November 2018.
 In April 2018: 8 students, study programme “Mnagement”, course “Company Business
Organisation”
 In November 2018: 17 students, study programme “Business economics”, course
“International business”
All the simulations, including EKA created, was tested in Ljubljana during the StudentHub –
Intensive BSS-based Study Programme in October 2018.
Besides, BSS was tested by staff members of foreign Universities during the Staff Training Week
(STW2018) “DIGITALIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION” was organized by the Alberta College
and the University of Economics and Culture and took place on September 25-28, 2018 (see
STW2018 programme in the Appendix 1), however it was not formally evaluated, using the
questionnaire.

2. FEEDBACK FROM EKA STUDENTS

There was a certain period between three series of testing BSS by students: February – April –
November. So, it is possible to see the progress in the technical quality of the software.
Answering the question about the technical issues while running the simulations, there were
many answers ‘Yes’ during the first two testing. Among the answers were ‘problems when
switching to other task’, ‘problems with the button ‘continue’’ and etc. In turn, all of the 3 rd group
of students answered ‘No’.
The answers on the multiple-choice questions (5-point scale: 1- strongly agree; 1 – strongly
disagree) are summarized in Fig. 4, Fig. 5, Fig. 6, Fig. 7 and Fig. 8.

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 16 25
14
20
12
10 15
8
6 10
4
5
2
0 0
strongly agree undecided disagree strongly strongly agree undecided disagree strongly
agree disagree agree disagree

Fig. 4. Distribution of the students’ answers to the Fig. 5. Distribution of the students’ answers to the
question ‘Did you find BSS easy to use overall?’ question ‘Was the BSS useful and interesting in
presenting practical cases for the particular subject?’
20 18
18 16
16 14
14 12
12 10
10 8
8 6
6 4
4
2 2
0 0
strongly agree undecided disagree strongly strongly agree undecided disagree strongly
agree disagree agree disagree

Fig. 6. Distribution of the students’ answers to the Fig. 7. Distribution of the students’ answers to the
question ‘Did you find the particular scenario in your question ‘Does the grading system provide adequate
subject understandable and useful in providing information regarding your achievements in the
additional knowledge to the theoretical part?’ particular scenario?’
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
strongly agree agree undecided disagree strongly
disagree

Fig. 8. Distribution of the students’ answers to the question ‘Where the choices in the scenario clear and correctly
provided?’

As it is seen from the Figures above, most of students evaluated BSS positively according to all
the criteria.
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There were many comments and suggestions from the students, such as ‘add group work’, ‘add
the possibility to return/ add button ‘back’, add possibility to delete the previous results’. Some
comments were devoted to the content of the scenarios, not to the quality of BSS. The most
disputable question was the grading system. Some comments are provided below:
 ‘make a grading system more interesting in the form of special conditional units or
tokens’
 ‘make grading diagram in other view, because I needed time to understand it’
 ‘explanation about the grade is needed – how the grade was developed’
 ‘the result should be explained – to know what you have done wrong’
There were many suggestions to improve the design of the programme - add illustrations and
animation to make it more attractive.
Besides, there very many positive comments about BSS, such as ‘clear and easy running’. Some
students asked for more scenarios, or even ‘make the programme in different languages and
promote it in different universities’.

3. FEEDBACK FROM EKA PROFESSORS

BSS was formally evaluated by EKA academic staff members – developers of BSS scenarios –
Edgars Čerkovskis, Oksana Lentjušenkova and Jelena Titko.
All three EKA representatives were agree/strongly agree with the most of the statements about
BSS: easiness to use, functionality, and grading system. They also considered that the operations
in BSS are time consuming. This is probably the only negative point about BSS – the proper
uploading of the task into the system is hard work due to technical specificities. However, the
process of task development is logical and easily can be explained to other lecturers that is very
important, considering the necessity of the information dissemination about BSS within the
university. User-friendliness of BSS is also disputable, and two of three professors selected the
variant ‘undecided’. There are probably no problems to use BSS for students, but for developers
of scenarios the process could be easier.
Professors suggested to ‘improve interface with images’, ‘to make the process of uploading
simulation easier’ and to ‘add ’copy’ function’.

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 4. SUMMARY

BSS is a great product created in a relatively short period and approbated by teaching staff and
students. Considering the limited budget available for its development, BSS has an adequate
technical quality to be used in the study process.
It can be concluded that the overall aims stated in the project were achieved, specifically ‘To
improve the quality and efficiency of educational best-practices at the partnering HEIs’.
Gamification is one of the modern trends in education that allows to improve the study process,
making it more interesting and ,thus, to increase students’ engagement.
It was decided by EKA management to continue BSS usage after the project and to integrate it
into the study process. The decision regarding the specific courses to create new business
scenarios will be taken in the nearest future, discussing this opportunity with directors of study
programmes.

Appendix 1

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