Digitalization of Higher Education During the Pandemic: Advantages and Risks

This research article presents the analysis and interpretation of the data of the authors’ study of the condition, problems and prospects of higher education digitalization at RSUH in comparison with the experience of leading foreign and Russian universities.The purpose of the article is to determine the level and features of the digitalization process of Russian higher education before, during and after the pandemic.The theoretical basis of the research is institutional and socio-cultural approaches that suggest considering the introduction of online education in the context of responding to the challenge of the formation of the digital economy and digital society. The empirical basis of the study is a survey conducted in April 2020 by the online questionnaire method, in which 327 people (representatives of the teaching staff, researchers, heads of educational departments (deans, heads of research centers), deputy heads of departments, as well as employees of deaneries, research centers and departments) took part in. Based on the generalization and interpretation of the data of the study, the authors showed that the digitalization of higher education at RSUH, as at other Russian universities, is based on the formation of an electronic information and educational environment. It appears that the evaluation of the level of access to this environment and the quality of services provided is high enough, while the effectiveness of the application needs to be improved. The introduction of electronic document management and meaningful communication with students remain the “pain points”.The causes and consequences of the impact of the pandemic on the digitalization of higher education are identified in the article. Among them: the need for new forms of student-teacher-administration communication; lack of specialized educational materials for online education; technical, methodological and psychological unpreparedness of teachers for distance education. The future belongs to mixed forms of equivalent and digital higher education. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the novelty of the comparative study of online education in Russian universities conducted by the authors (on the example of RSUH, MEPhI, NSU), as well as in the justification of the formation of hybrid (mixed) forms of higher education. Based on this study it is proposed to form a university management strategy and implement the restructuring of the educational process.