Education Law Laboratory

Expert Seminar "The Digital Agenda in Education Empowering Education Rights and Innovation in Education: Future Challenges on Policy and Law"

On November 15, the expert seminar was held in the Institute of Education of the National Research University "Higher School of Economics". The seminar was organized by the Centre for Education Law of the Institute of Education.

The participants discussed the goals of developing online courses, how to combine traditional and digital teaching methods, the most inspiring foreign models of digital technologies in education.

Professor Piet Henderikx, a senior executive advisor at the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (Belgium), opened the expert seminar, making a presentation on "How can the Education Sector Cope with the Future Digital Agenda: Relevancy of Blended and Long-Distance Learning"
Piet Henderikx noted that technology has become part of a variety of pedagogical approaches. For example, five years ago, only 20% of all courses could be taught online. To date, the situation has changed. The goal of the European Association of Distance Learning Universities is to achieve a level at which 40% (or more) of the population will receive a bachelor’s degree by 2025 with the help of a new education format.

Prof Henderikx paid special attention that it is not enough just to transfer the lecture to an online format. Of great importance is the macro level, that is, the level of education management. It is necessary to develop an educational policy in which educational institutions will be actively involved, and joint strategies will be developed. It is necessary to include the level of educational institutions, embedding each institution in the new system. Without this, the transition to a mixed education is impossible.
Evgeny Puchkov, research assistant of the Centre for Education Law, Institute of Education, HSE University (Russia) presented a report "The Use of MOOCs in Higher Education: International and Comparative Practice". The speaker noted that the digitalization of education was named one of the main trends in the development of higher education in Europe in 2015. One of the main educational technologies contributing to the digitalization of education is the open mass online courses (MOOC). The author reviewed the situation with online education in such countries as the USA, France, Great Britain, Norway, China and the Netherlands.

In conclusion, it was noted that the use of MOOC in the framework of the actual passage of the main educational programs remains extremely undeveloped in world practice. In all the reviewed countries there are no regulatory documents regarding the issues of credit recognition or certification of online courses.

Tatiana Semenova, junior research fellow of the Centre of Sociology of Higher Education, Institute of Education, made a presentation entitled "Replacing Face-to-Face Courses with MOOCs: Results of Randomized Experiment". 325 students (second year, engineering speciality) from three universities of the Volga Federal District participated in the experiment.

The study concluded that:
- the training format does not significantly affect the student learning outcomes;
- the learning outcomes of students of the online format were not lower than those of mixed and full-time students;
- students are wary of the online format and prefer full-time or mixed formats;

Thus, in a mixed format, MOOC is more familiar, therefore, more preferable for students.
Ivan Gruzdev, Director of the Centre for Institutional Research of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia), presented the results of the annual survey of students of the Higher School of Economics "Monitoring of student life", covering students of all courses in undergraduate and graduate programs of the Higher School of Economics.

According to the results, preferences regarding the formats of disciplines vary greatly depending on the direction of study. The largest share of students who prefer the traditional format of courses at the undergraduate level is observed in programs such as state and municipal government (74%), art history (72%), world economy (70%), history (68%), international relations ( 68%), in the magistracy - in such specialties as urban planning (67%), psychology (66%), international relations (65%).

According to the survey, the most problematic aspects of online courses are HSE students who consider the inadequate list of online disciplines offered for mastering and the ability to be relatively easy to write off during the exam.
Ivan Karlov, Institute of Education, HSE University (Russia), presented the report "Digital technologies for personalizing education: adaptability and proactivity".

First of all, the author noted that online learning systems create large amounts of data that provide new opportunities for assessing and aligning the learning process.

Analytics, with which they work within the framework of digital platforms, can be divided into:
- reactive analytics (analytics, formed by the results of training).
- proactive analytics (analytics, formed on the basis of history and current state and affecting the current learning process).
The speaker noted the massive distribution of adaptive systems. Adaptability, a term that comes from biology, means the ability to live organisms to adapt to the environment. However, this term was entered into the training through the system of artificial intelligence. Adaptive learning (adaptive learning) - dynamic, based on the analysis of data building an individual learning path, taking into account preparedness, abilities, goals, motivation and other characteristics of the listener.
The adaptability of the new level includes:
- expanding the range of data used by the Internet of Things - building an individual trajectory not only on the basis of the system, but also on data describing the current state of the student;
- formation of an individual trajectory not only in the context of choosing the optimal strategy for the order of mastering the material but also choosing the most effective presentation for the student, intensity and other parameters of training;
- use of Artificial Intelligence for the formation of a digital assistant-agent, which makes it possible to identify successful learning strategies, select the most appropriate for this student and accompany the learning process, ensuring the implementation of the chosen strategy.
The expert seminar ended with a panel discussion in which participants discussed current issues of digitalization of education in Russia and foreign countries.