ELECTRONIC DATABASES IN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM OF UKRAINE: LEGAL AND ECONOMIC COMPONENTS OF PROTECTION

Abstract

The article examines the legal and economic components of the protection of electronic databases in the education system of Ukraine. As a result of the study, it was established that the state policy of Ukraine on the digitalization of education is aimed at creating a single, secure and transparent digital ecosystem, which is implemented by: ensuring the functioning of the main information systems in the field of education, ensuring secure access to them and creating a system for their protection. It was found that the implementation of the state policy on the digitalization of education in Ukraine is hampered by a lack of funding and security challenges of wartime. It is proved that the public administration of electronic databases in the education system of Ukraine as a complex concept should include the following components: 1) electronic databases in the education system; 2) legal norms that regulate their public administration; 3) competence (limits of authority) of public authorities regarding their proper administration; 4) the procedure for forming databases; 5) the procedure for providing access to databases; 6) protection of information resources containing databases. It has been determined that electronic databases in the education system of Ukraine include: 1) the Unified State Electronic Database on Education (UEDEBO), which includes the following separate information resources: the register of subjects of educational activity, the register of education applicants, the register of education documents, the register of external independent assessment certificates, the register of student (student) tickets, the register of pedagogical, scientific and pedagogical workers, the register of certificates of pedagogical workers; 2) the Automated Information Complex of Educational Management (AICOM), as an integrated information resource in the field of education; 3) internal information bases in educational institutions – web pages, electronic journals, summary information on learning success, electronic databases on which educational materials and documents regulating the educational process are placed; 4) scientometric databases (for example, Scopus, Web of Science), which help track the citation of scientific articles, which is important for academic development; 5) distance education platforms to ensure distance learning. The shortcomings of the legal support for the functioning of electronic databases in the education system of Ukraine are identified, and areas for its improvement are proposed, in particular: the need for their integration with the "Diya" portal; the introduction of transparent data protection procedures; ensuring the interaction of educational databases with other state registers and the e-government system (a single infrastructure of interdepartmental interaction); the introduction of persuasion methods and clear administrative rules (permits, regulations) for the use of databases, which improves the quality of management processes; expanding the functionality, where the basis is the Unified State Web Portal of Electronic Services "Diya Portal" and the citizen's office; creating mechanisms for automated control over the reliability of data and ensuring the transparency of the activities of public administration bodies in the field of education. The economic components that affect the functioning and protection of educational databases are identified, namely: optimization of expenses and increasing efficiency; investments in data security; consideration of financial risks and cyber threats and their elimination; quality and training of personnel. Directions for improving the economic component of the functioning and protection of electronic databases in the education system of Ukraine are proposed, in particular: 1) cost optimization and cloud technologies, namely, the abandonment of own servers and the complete transition of educational institutions from maintaining expensive local data centers to using cloud services, conducting centralized tenders through the Prozorro system for the purchase of licenses for database management systems (DBMS) and antivirus software at the regional or state level (for example, for EDEB); 2) attracting grant and international assistance through the use of targeted loan and grant programs from international donors (such as the World Bank initiative) to develop a secure digital educational environment; 3) establishing a public-private partnership, which involves involving leading Ukrainian and international IT companies in the creation and protection of educational databases on the terms of corporate social responsibility or partnership, creating educational hubs on the basis of universities, where students of specialized specialties (cybersecurity, IT) under the guidance of practitioners will conduct an audit of school and university databases, which will reduce the cost of third-party contractor services; 4) implementation of a risk-based security audit – a transition from chaotic spending of funds to conducting regular IT audits, which allows investing only in those protection systems that meet current cyber threats, implementing automated data backup to the cloud, introducing regulatory and financial autonomy, which consists in providing higher education institutions with the opportunity to independently redistribute special funds (funds from contract training) for priority purchases of cloud solutions and information security services.