PProject of Open Education was officially represented at conference of new education technologies EdCrunch on September 14, 2015.
This is a modern educational platform that offers online courses within the undergraduate curriculum. It has been created by the Association “National Platform of Open Education”, which has been founded by leading Russian universities – Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University, SPbPU, the HSE, MISA, MIPT, Saint Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Urfa. Together they promote this project as a new component of the Russian system of higher education, focused on improving the quality of education and its accessibility.
The purpose of the project at the moment is to give the opportunity to anyone to study different courses on the level at which they are taught in the leading universities of the country. Since all the presented courses are free of charge, they are available without any requirement to basic education, and even scholars can try their forces. But the main audience is, of course, students, who want to be trained with high demands on results: for those who wish to transfer successfull results to their University there is an option to receive a verified certificate.
All courses of «Open education» have been developed according to the requirements of Federal Education Standards, and the quality of the educational material is guaranteed by the internal examination of the participants. Special attention has been paid to efficiency and high quality of online courses, and also an assessment of learning outcomes. Each of the universities presented courses based on its strongest profile so these are the best courses from the most advanced professors of the University.
There are 47 courses in eight different directions presented in the catalogue on the website openedu.ru. For example, you can find courses according to the Theory of Games, Optics, Thermodynamics, Astronomy, Metrology, Biophysics in the section of Mathematical and Natural Sciences. Intercultural Communication, Philosophy, History of Russia can be found in the section of Humanities. Lots of the courses belong to the several directions – for example, Sociology is presented in the section of Health Care and in the section of Pedagogical Science and also in the section of Art and Culture. Unfortunately, the record on part of the courses has already closed, but it is still available on the courses that have recently started or have just been declared for 2016. What is more, new courses appear, and the new announcements are published as the courses become available on the website.
The duration of each course is several weeks, and every week the teachers place new educational materials in accordance with the program. The theoretical part is presented in the format of video lectures, every lecture ends with the tasks below: tests, interactive exercises, seminars, writing creative works. The student can watch the lectures in an any order he likes, but the deadlines for tasks are set by the teacher, and they must be observed for successful passing of the course.
The authors of the project estimate the perspective in depend of the contingent of the students. The online education effectivity is closely connected with the strong internal motivation, but still the basics disciplines require high quality and versatility of the content. Respectively, implemention of the project assumes the continious improvement and upgrading the courses; and the solution of questions of financing and providing the general minimum level of quality will allow new Universities to enter into a new project not only as consumers but also as a developers.
1. http://npoed.ru/about
2. http://npoed.ru/faq
3. https://newtonew.com/news/national-open-education
