Digital competence of Russian university teachers

This research paper presents the results of the author’s survey aimed at assessing the digital competence of modern university teachers. The relevance of digital competencies is becoming more and more obvious due to the transformations in the activities of educational organizations. These changes concern the use of digital technologies not only in university management, but also directly in the educational process. The development of distance learning and remote interaction formats is an objective reality in the modern world. The purpose of this article is to make an attempt of assessing a university teacher’s digital competence level based on the general perception of his/her abilities and the digital technologies used in his/her professional activities. The author analyses the teachers’ readiness to use digital technologies and their attitude to distance learning. The study showed that the majority of the interviewed teachers have a high level of basic and universal digital competencies. It was found that most of the respondents already have experience of taking online courses to improve their professional skills. The analysis makes it possible to conclude that the teachers who participated in the survey demonstrate a high readiness to use digital technologies in their professional activities. The author’s study is not supposed to give a complete picture of all Russian university teachers’ digital competence level, since this requires both greater coverage of respondents and the use of other channels (beyond digital) to collect data within the survey. At the same time, this research allows to formulate possible ideas for improving Russian university teachers’ digital competence level, which nowadays becomes the key to improving their effectiveness. The results of the study can be used when working out universities’ personnel development programs in order to ensure a higher level of the teachers’ digital competence.

Assessment of the student’s educational experience as a tool for making management decisions in the university

This article draws attention to students’ educational experience at a Russian regional university. Such experience is based on two aspects: on the one hand, it is a result of abilities integration, and on the other, it is an ability to act in a context of uncertainty. The latter aspect in understanding students’ experience is the most important for the personality formation in today’s complex world. Within the context of the higher education transformation, experience as an ability to act plays a significant role in individual development. That is why this study is aimed at analyzing the educational experience of first-year students and university graduates. Their educational experience is assessed based on their involvement in educational practices in class, in research activities at the university, and in self-educational activities. The results show that the first-year students’ experience and the graduates’ one at the university have functional differences. The first-year students’ academic engagement is higher as compared to the graduate students’. The research experience of both is expressed in a low degree. The self-educational experience at the university is not strategically formed. Comparing the first-year students’ and the graduates’ educational experiences, one can conclude that the structure of the latter is more functional due to the graduates’ limited involvement in educational activities. This means that the educational experience varies during the period of studies mainly in individual competencies, which are not connected with each other. The low level of the students’ involvement in educational practice reflects the weak development of their experience as an ability to act. It is the structure of a student’s motives that can be one of the main factors of his/her involvement in the learning process. Our findings contribute to the design of educational practices at the university and suggest the strong demand for a more responsible approach to designing the educational environment and educational practices at all university levels.

Carpe diem, Alma Mater! The Adaptation experience of university education to the changes in the labour market

In the XXI century, the tourism and hospitality industry has become one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy. The need to train qualified personnel for this sphere has prompted many Russian universities to start training students in service and tourism-related fields of study. The article summarizes twenty years of experience of Ural Federal University tourism department in improving the educational program “Tourism” in terms of interaction with the professional community. Attention is paid to unique programs of additional education and advanced training for specialists in the field, and the areas of analytical, expert activities, and consulting are considered. Particular emphasis is placed on the importance of interaction with graduates of the department, whose career achievements in tourism and hospitality in no small measure contributed to the promotion of UrFU in the subject ranking QS Hospitality & Leisure Management.

Is the infrastructure of regional universities ready to meet the challenges of digital transformation?

The processes of informatization, digitalization, and digital transformation of education have led to large-scale changes that have affected almost all elements of the educational system – from pedagogical concepts and technologies to the structures of new types («digital universities», «smart campuses», etc.). The creation of such structures is based on the universities’ IT-infrastructure, the requirements for the latter to be determined by the modern problems challenging the higher education system. The development of the IT-infrastructure became particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic, when there appeared the necessity of an urgent transition to electronic forms of education, including the mass delivery of electronic content to students. This problem was most acute for regional universities, whose own resources were not always sufficient to solve it. The purpose of this research article is to analyze the dynamics of the universities’ IT-infrastructure 2015–2020 development in the Sverdlovsk region as the basis for their digitalization and digital transformation. The choice of the Sverdlovsk region is explained by the fact that among the subjects of the Russian Federation, it occupies one of the leading positions by the number of universities and the number of students. Within the study, based on 2015–2020 statistical data (the so-called «ВПО-1» and «ВПО-2» forms as filled in by all HEIs), there were analyzed various components of the universities’ IT-infrastructure: the park of personal computers and multimedia facilities; the access to the Internet; the general availability of special software both for the region as a whole and in the context of particular universities. According to our analysis, the period studied saw growth in the information equipment provision for the universities’ non-educational activities, and – at the same time – decrease in the provision of computers used for educational purposes and for the students’ independent work. Along with the positive dynamics of providing the universities with access to high-speed Internet, less than a third of them maintain a maximum speed of over 100 Mbps. The universities are provided mainly with mandatory software tools (electronic library and reference systems, testing systems), whereas the virtual simulators are the least available. Another problem is the obsolescence of universities’ information technology equipment. At the same time, the region continues to see the universities’ differentiation by the level of all the IT-infrastructure components development (hardware, Internet access, software). To solve the problems of digitalization and digital transformation, the universities should assess the IT-infrastructure capacity necessary to solve modern educational and extracurricular tasks according to the interests of external and internal stakeholders (including employees and students of various categories), and more clearly formulate the objectives of modernizing IT-infrastructure in their development programs (strategies). The elimination of the universities’ digital inequality in the regions should be reflected in federal projects concerning the development of higher education. For these purposes, it is necessary to develop a modern methodology for assessing the compliance of the universities’ IT-infrastructure with the requirements of digitalization and digital transformation. Our research is original, as it presents an attempt to analyze the dynamics of the universities’ IT-infrastructure development in the Sverdlovsk region on the basis of statistical data.

The Contract Training Program as a Tool for the Formation and Development of the University's Personnel Potential

The weak motivation of young people to scientific and pedagogical activity, the shortcomings of the system of training highly qualified personnel, the decline in the interest of postgraduate graduates in professional scientific and pedagogical activity and many other factors lead to the aging of scientific and pedagogical personnel of Russian universities. In the last few years, universities have been actively searching for approaches to improving the systems of reproduction of scientific and pedagogical personnel. The analysis of programs aimed at rejuvenation of personnel and building up the scientific potential of the university, carried out in the article, allowed us to identify the key features of practical tools used in universities. The most promising mechanism can be considered contract training, since it allows you to secure young promising personnel at the university for at least several years. At the same time, this practice is not systematized, has no theoretical and methodological justification, in addition, there are no conceptual developments of the model of the contract training of scientific and pedagogical personnel. The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual model of the contract training of highly qualified scientific and pedagogical personnel and to analyze the implemented model. The methodology of this work is based on a systematic approach, in which both special methods were used: comparative analysis, content analysis of documents, morphological analysis, and general scientific research methods. To achieve stated goal, the practice of implementing a model of contract training of personnel is revealed on the example of the Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service. The program of reproduction of scientific and pedagogical personnel based on the system of targeted contract training has been implemented at the university for several years and already has certain results. The scientific novelty of this work consists in the formation of conceptual approach to the development and implementation of a system of the contract training of scientific and pedagogical personnel for universities. The article may be useful for researchers and university managers dealing with the issues of training highly qualified personnel, rejuvenation of the personnel structure and personnel management of the university in general.

Digital footprint in predicting school graduates’ educational strategy

This research article aims at evaluating the results of the school graduates’ educational strategy transformation with the help of digital footprint data. The analysis of official and unofficial Internet communities of universities in the social network «VKontakte» shows that their active users are school graduates, who thus receive the necessary information about the university. The method presented can become a promising tool to forecast the demand for higher education. The study covers the period from 2019 to 2021, a total of 502 thousand user profiles having been identified, 246 thousand accounts included in the final sample. The results show that during the analyzed period the number of user subscriptions to university communities has decreased in all Russian regions. The orientation towards universities located in other regions has also changed: these were more popular before the pandemic, being subscribed to by the majority of students, whereas after the spread of COVID-19, most of the graduates began to choose universities located in their native region. A significant limitation of this method is that a number of profiles are closed, which logically does not allow to use them in further analysis. The results of the study show, however, high validity and wide opportunities for the use of the digital footprint method when predicting young people’s educational trajectory and planning the enrollment campaign, both on the scale of the university and the whole country.

Development of organizational formats for research infrastructure: Center for Fundamental Biotechnology and Bioengineering

The publication presents the case of the Ural Federal University in the development of organizational formats of infrastructure for research. In 2016, the Center for Fundamental Biotechnology and Bioengineering was established at the Ural Federal University with the support of the Competitiveness Enhancement Program (5–100). The goal of the project was to form a scientific center for the development of the basic research in biotechnology and bioengineering for medicine, agribusiness and environmental solutions, increasing the effectiveness of scientific activities in the field of biotechnology and reaching the image of an international scientific center for biotechnology and bioengineering. In the five-year history of the Center for Fundamental Biotechnology, two stages can be distinguished – the first three years were the formation of the structure of the center, its equipment base and the development of professional competencies of employees, in subsequent years the created conditions ensured the growth of the Center’s performance indicators, for example, publication activity increased 13.4 times, more than in 10 times decreased research costs per 1 article and increased the profitability ratio. This allowed the Center to become competitive at the federal level and recognized in the international professional community.

Typology of career trajectories and motivation of their choice by teachers of higher education institutions

This research article presents a typology of career trajectories for higher educational institutions’ teachers and examines their motives of a potential change in a career trajectory, their willingness to move to work in another university or leave the academic field. The motives for choosing a career path are systematized and ranked. There was carried out an empirical research using the method of semi-structured interviews with 108 professors and managerial staff representatives of Russian universities. The informants were selected according to gender, age, industry characteristics, their working experience in higher education and positions held.The results of the study identified three categories of workers: loyal to their organization (not meaning to change their working place and sphere of interests); dedicated to the profession (admitting a transfer to another university, but not planning to leave the academic field); and change-oriented (considering the possibility of choosing another job – outside the academic sector). The empirical research has shown that teachers with extensive work experience are most willing to change their current jobs.The originality of the study lies in developing a typology of career trajectories for teachers and in clarifying key motivations within the subgroups included in the typology presented, as well as in using a qualitative method for studying career trajectories in relation to scientific and pedagogical workers. A qualitative analysis of career strategies made it possible to analytically assess the informants’ opinions.The article is of interest to the higher education researchers involved in the process of personnel management and in training scientific and pedagogical workers. It will also be useful for heads of HR departments and for HEI vice-rectors dealing with personnel issues.

Practice-based doctoral programs and professional degrees: analysis of foreign experience

Practical-oriented postgraduate programs aimed at developing graduates’ professional career outside the academic labor market have become widespread in leading foreign universities. There is a statutory unified format of postgraduate studies in Russia, aimed at training of personnel for science and higher education. At the same time, the need of adaptation of postgraduate training programs to the demands of the real economy sector is becoming more evident. The purpose of this review is to analyze scientific publications and case studies of foreign universities implementing practical-oriented postgraduate programs with professional degrees, which are equivalent to PhD in social status. Drawing on the analysis of international experience, the prospects of the establishment and development of such programs in Russian postgraduate studies are discussed. The study identified the most common characteristics of practical-oriented programs and their differences from academic postgraduate programs: 1) students’ involvement in applied research, which is relevant for the real economy sector; 2) an individual approach for postgraduate education considering professional interests of the students and employers’ demands; 3) a clearly structured system of education and scientific management, based on cooperation of universities and enterprises; 4) using innovative forms of final academic assessment. Based on the analysis of Russian experience it is concluded that practical-oriented training for postgraduate students is in demand and in fact already exists, but is not provided with necessary statutory regulation. It is pointed out that, owing to a lack of data, the extent of this arrangement and key barriers on the way to a degree among Russian practical-oriented postgraduate students have not been studied. The main directions of empirical research, which are necessary for making adequate management decisions on institutionalizing practical-oriented postgraduate programs in Russia, have been formulated. The article is of interest to researchers of higher education, scientific, pedagogical and administrative employees of higher education institutions, as well as for the state authorities responsible for implementing the policy of education and certification of highly trained personnel.

The universities’ role in developing citizen science discourse

The article, aimed at mapping ways to enhance the systemic character and sustainability of citizen science, analyses the state of its discourse in the Russian context. The analysis, relying upon the multiple actor interdisciplinary paradigm within the framework of rational agency, applied comparative and analytical methods. The research concentrated on identifying common invariant features in the processes of initiating and developing citizen science projects, as well as on distinguishing core unresolved issues. The article points out the relevance of citizen science, viewing the latter as a reflection of changes in the relationships and activities undertaken by people, communities and society at large, diverse actors getting more and more involved in these activities, with their functionality and impact on social processes being expanded. The research can be considered brandly new, because it defines the role of citizen science as a new synergetic paradigm for the development of science and higher education in Russia, and as an important communication-and-cooperation channel between higher education and society at large. In particular, it is revealed that at the macrolevel, citizen science projects contribute to the democratization of both scientific research and society as a whole by invoking actors from various social spheres and subsystems, as well as by strengthening citizens’ confidence in the state. At the microlevel, the projects contribute to the universities’ educational and social mission, expand and diversify the interaction of HEIs with society, and foster new research questions formulation. The practical use of the research is viewed as a possible integration of our conclusions in the further practice-oriented investigations, in forming citizen science backgrounds, competences, and methodological base. Of no less importance are the materials for the training programmes modernization in the field of science and higher education administration.