ICT-Based Content for Higher Education: Russia, Russian Far East, and Far Eastern National University

This paper presents the results of a research ordered by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science and conducted in 2005-2006 by a team of Far Eastern National University (FENU) specialists. The paper is focusing on one particular topic of that research, ICT-based content of national and regional (Russian Far Eastern) higher education, its value and availability for national and international students. 1. Russian “Open Education” System and Concept Far Eastern National University is the only institution representing Russia in the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), so we feel important to outline the major trends in ICT-based content development in Russia as a whole. Moreover, regional activities in this field are in a high degree compliant with federal requirements and plans, so understanding the national situation is important for understanding the regional issues related to ICT-based education. Russian “Open Education” concept appeared in 1990s as a reaction to successful development of various foreign “Open Universities”, first of all the Open University of United Kingdom, and many international open education projects. For general Russian public, “open education” is definitely something transplanted from Western culture. However, the Russian concept of open education is much broader, and it has its specifics. Many aspects of Western education are being transplanted into Russian soil under this term, but not the term itself – it is essentially different. For example, open access learning object repositories is only a minor part of Russian open education. Development of Russian open education system is a long-term federal governmental strategy. Many university specialists, primarily dealing with distance learning, ICT, and innovative teaching methods, contributed to the concept of Russian open education. Exactly for this reason, the concept has no particular author – it is mostly associated with name of its top governmental supporters. In short, this concept is all about overcoming barriers of many kinds – barriers between Russian education and the rest of the world, distances between teachers and students, lags between the IT level of Russia and the most advanced countries, obstacles which students faced trying to move from one national university to another, and even from one school to another within the same university. Soviet educational system was very rigid in terms of prescribed study pattern. Usually students were sitting next to the same classmates and taking the same courses during many years. Only a few courses were optional. The freedom to choose the modes of study and courses, to move between schools, as well as the standardized academic credit systems backing this freedom, were considered to be successful worldwide experience to be transplanted into the educational system of democratic Russia. However, the problem was that Soviet educational system, in spite APRU DLI 2006 2B-3