Online Education

The direction is devoted to studying the digital transformation of education at universities and identifying effective ways to overcome the main problems in MOOCs, taking into account the heterogeneous nature of the population of online course participants in order to improve the quality of courses and reduce inequality in educational outcomes.

Key research questions of the direction include the following questions:

• How to improve the efficiency of introducing MOOCs into the educational process of universities?
• How can the inequality of educational outcomes among MOOC participants be reduced?
• How can I improve the quality of my online courses?
• How to increase the level of social engagement of participants at MOOCs?

Projects within the direction

2019-2020. Research on digital transformation in education

This project is being implemented within the framework of an inter-university consortium, whose activities are aimed at conducting joint research on the study of digital transformation in education. The project includes several studies: (1) a study of the attitude and degree of readiness of students and teachers to the digital transformation of education; (2) research on the effectiveness of digital transformation of education. The first study includes conducting an online survey of students and professors of Russian universities, as well as a series of expert interviews with the administrative staff of universities. The second study includes conducting an experiment, focus groups and surveys of students and university professors.

In addition, a team of researchers in this area is studying the discourse of the main stakeholders in higher education regarding the digitalization of education.

2017-2018. Research of new forms of organization of the educational process using open online courses

This project was carried out jointly with the Ural Federal University named after V.I. the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin by order of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation in 2017-2018. The study was aimed at identifying the conditions for the effective dissemination of new educational technologies of online learning in the higher education system by testing and comparing various models of using online courses in educational organizations. The project carried out an experiment comparing several models of using online courses with a traditional format based on the educational results of students. The experiment involved students from three regional universities in Russia.

2017. Research to identify the competencies required for the successful completion of online courses, and the development of recommendations for the development of a set of competencies necessary for the successful completion of online courses

This project was carried out by order of the Ural Federal University. the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin in the framework of the priority project "Modern digital educational environment" in 2017. As part of the project, an online survey was conducted among participants in online courses of the national Open Education platform (OPET) who are students of Russian universities to determine the set of competencies required for successful completion of online courses.

2016. Project on the development of organizational models for the inclusion of MOOCs in the educational process of universities

This project was carried out by order of the national platform "Open Education" in 2016. Within the framework of the project, several analytical notes were prepared with an overview of the experience of including online courses in curricula, organizational models for the inclusion of online IVET courses in curricula were developed and tested on students of four Russian universities, and a legal examination of regulatory documents governing e-learning was carried out. ... The project was carried out by the Center for Sociology of Higher Education in cooperation with the Center for Educational Law and the Directorate of Basic Educational Programs of the Higher School of Economics.