The modern digital society is characterized by high rates of technological development that have an impact on all areas of activity. The system of education is the most sensitive to innovations and the rate of knowledge renewal is tremendous. What is more important that now the most priority task of education is to develop the student's ability to independently
set educational objectives, design ways to implement them, monitor and evaluate its achievements, work with different sources of information and be able to formulate its own opinion, judgment, and assessment. As a result, one of the priority tasks of modern education is the upbringing of student independence as a fundamental competence.
The introduction of online learning technologies in educational activities and the transition to distance learning - all this is aimed at creating an open, accessible, continuous and learning system which improves the quality of education. It can be noticed that online learning is characterized by high dynamism, various forms of education, more comfortable learning conditions and the presence of interactive communication. What absolutely differs from the traditional way of learning and based on the pandemic conditions online learning is becoming more widespread. Consequentially, all universities were forced to organize educational activities in a distance format using online platforms which helped to collaborate with students and not to stop the educational process. Although there are well-known digital communication platforms that are used by schools and universities in the whole world while there are those which are used by Russian educational institutions.
Speaking generally, some platforms were modified in Russia and are used daily by universities and schools in the country. Of course, different universities use different digital communication platforms and the reasons for that were already discussed in the subchapter before. Among them is World Skills Russia which is well – known for its goal to enhancing of simple working professions with help of balancing world standards and practices; and organizing competitions for people from such spheres for self–development and exchanging knowledge with others. (WorldSkills, 2021)
In addition, there are other Russian social network platforms such as Uchi.ru, Moi Dostizheniya, Olimpium, Yandex.Uchebnik, Skyeng, Foxford, Yaclass and many others.
(MOU number 5, 2021) All of them are aimed at learning and some of them are used by higher education representatives in the Russian Federation. Uchi.ru has different features where there are useful materials for learning which every professor can upload on the webpage and every student can have access to them through their account. It is also possible to contact professors by phone or video call. (MOU number 5, 2021)
Moreover, there is another social network such as Olimpium which became very useful for those who get used to taking participation in educational Olympiads. That is an extremely beneficial social network for people who have not opportunity to take a participate in Olympiads in the traditional way due to coronavirus limitations. This network aids pupils who will be graduated from high schools soon or for students at universities who will finish their education this or next year. To be more precise, some universities and employers allow taking participation in different Olympiads during education at schools what will give priority to enrolees and students who won those Olympiads or who have great results.
(MOU number 5, 2021) Sometimes there is an opportunity to be automatically accepted on a specific faculty at a certain university if a person is a winner. Nevertheless, there is another group of students who want to participate due to wish to prove to others and themselves that they are the best in some major. The last factor is when people want to get the main prize for prize place on Olympiads. All these activities are possible today during pandemic situation thanks to the social network Olimpium. Definitely, any educational competition is a form of self - education before, during it and after it as students are preparing for a long
period of time for it and try to find an answer to questions and tasks which were in Olympiads even after them. (MOU number 5, 2021) Undoubtedly, all those digital communication platforms helped a lot for educational structures, students, and professors to continue their teaching and learning despite the fact that there are thousands of limitations.
According to the conducted by Study Russia portal research in January 2021, different universities use a different application for online education and even some institutions apply digital communication platforms which are the most comfortable for their international students. For the reason to observe most of the usable digital communication platforms in higher education in Russia, there is a need to talk about top universities in the country and which applications are used by them. (Study Russia, 2021) The first one, the University of Economics, HSU, is a leading university and, according to the article from the Study Russia research, it is mostly using Zoom for study purposes. (Study Russia, 2021) What is also interesting to know about the university, that it is planning to apply digital communication platforms for the application period in 2021 and now they are already doing online consultations with future students and answering their questions. (Study Russia, 2021) In addition, the HSU has also implemented “Study Tour Experience” and “Class Experience” programs when any person can attend lectures. (Study Russia, 2021) It should allow making the right choice with the future job position. In like manner, this institution is also planning to create some university majors in Coursera what will be as a full program where students will be able to get a degree. (Study Russia, 2021)
Another university is MIPT, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, which is using their own social network which already let to exercise IPhO system with an opportunity to navigate the Olympiad with forty-one international teams. (Study Russia, 2021) FEFU university due to its close location to China has a lot of students from this neighboring country. As a consequence, it is allowed to use not only Microsoft Teams but also WeChat, which is extremely popular in China. (Study Russia, 2021) Correspondingly, NSU has similar to HSU approach for education by having online open doors, virtual meetings with future enrollees and current students. It also applies Zoom and Google Meet as many other universities on the territory of Russia. Uniquely, representatives of NSU and ETU “LETI”
are thinking about a virtual exchange of students from partner universities. (Study Russia, 2021) Different from other, professors and student of ETU “LETI” are practicing the strategy to use not only one or two but many different networks such as Moodle, Lectorium, Coursera and their own network - Leti teach and many others. (Study Russia, 2021)
The most compelling evidence is the interview for journal Garant with the vice-rector of Moscow State University, Stanislav Bushuev, who noticed that adaptation of professors and students from humanitarian majors was easy and fast. To put it differently, such specifications require lectures and seminars of theoretical classes what is definitely possible remotely with help of digital communication platforms which were used for that. On the other hand, there are such faculties where practical work is needed. (Shuvalova, 2020) As it was already written before that engineers need to learn their future job skills practically.
According to Maria Shuvalova, Bushuev Stanislav complained that there are no such digital communication platforms that would be suitable for training engineers, he also said that his
colleagues from Bauman University agree with his statements. “Imagine what a digital model should be, how even an elementary engine needs to be digitized in order to work with it, to carry out calculations - these are colossal costs. There are no platforms for recording a high-quality interactive course either.” (Bushuev, 2020) Stanislav has also noticed that there is a high need to create a competition for the development of a new social network which will aid to cover this gap in digital education. The first thing to remember that this point is certainly significant for not only Russian but also for world online education as there is no well-known social network which allows training practical skills for engineers.
(Shuvalova, 2020) As a matter of fact, doctors, chemists, electricians, builders, and many others are jobs that especially require getting practical knowledge already at universities.
As a consequence, when those developments of digital communication platforms for the training of practical skills are done, the whole educational system will be totally modified from traditional to digital way.
At the present time, the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia supported the idea of the vice-rector of MSU and the Ministry of Digital Development should start to construct possible models of virtual simulators, laboratories, and augmented reality. (Shuvalova, 2020) In the meantime, students from RUDN who are getting medical education use virtual reality technology where are laboratories for learning chemistry. This technology was developed by MSU and is a trial one. (Shuvalova, 2020) The point often overlooked that today medical students have a real-time opportunity to try themselves at their job. Most of them are working in hospitals with Covid – 19 sick people what allows students to replace the practical part at university with real one at hospitals in the Russian Federation.
(Shuvalova, 2020) What is more, it must be taken into account that other university’ majors which need to have a strong practical part during studying do not have digital communication platforms for that. In case if separate technology for that is developed, it will be required to create or edit existing digital communication platforms for a more comfortable and fact studying process. (Shuvalova, 2020)
Although, representatives of universities in Russia, the rectors and leading professors, have repeatedly emphasized the fact that a total distance learning format is a forced and exceptional measure. None of them have denied that the scope of application what are parts of distance learning elements will expand at universities in the nearest future. Indeed, online learning is one of the educational technologies which allows students to get access to the unique studying content of many universities, to correctly allocate teachers' time between teaching students and scientific or innovative activities, and equally important, to provide more opportunities for the implementation of individual educational strategies.
Today, such a way of educating students is the only possible safe way. Therefore, the new tasks which were set by the pandemic conditions for the higher education system not only can develop the digitalization level at Russian universities but also bring it to a new level of qualitatively.