Article
The structure of the University network: From the Soviet to Russian "master Plan"
The authors discuss the underpinnings of structural analysis in the higher education system. The article justifies why it focuses on specific labor market segments and the nature of the university's basic product as grounds for proposing a typology and groups of institutions. A Soviet "master plan" is reconstructed on the basis of the formulated approach to the typology. It is important because, according to the authors, the current structure of the Russian system of higher education is largely determined by how it developed during the Soviet period. It is shown that the Soviet project was built on the idea of administrative regulation of the labor market, and it is argued that it generally implemented a quasi-corporate system model of higher vocational education. The article analyzes how the structure of the higher education system that Russia inherited from the Soviet Union changed under the influence of factors that were mainly external to the education system. It was changed to a much lesser degree by deliberate government policy. The typology of higher education institutions that results from these changes is described based on an analysis of quantitative data. The authors consider possible structural policy directions in the field of higher vocational education as a foundation for working out a "master plan" for restructuring the higher education system in Russia. The authors establish goals that must be met by the modernization of the structure of higher education. © 2015 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
The paper analyses determinants of efficiency of Russian universities. The analysis is based on the data from annual monitoring of performance of higher education institutions conducted by the Ministry of Education and Science. Special attention is paid to the factors that are associated with public policy in the sphere of higher education. In order to explain the variation of the efficiency scores we implement one of the most modern techniques for analysis of efficiency’ determinants – Two-Stage Semi-parametric DEA. The high level of heterogeneity in Russian higher education sector is controlled for by considering two different specifications of DEA model: with the focus on educational activity and with the focus on scientific activity. The results show that relatively less efficient universities are more likely to be affected by the considered efficiency’ determinants compared to efficient ones. Universities that are governed by the Ministry of Education and Science and by regional governments appeared to be relatively more efficient compared to the universities that are governed by another federal authorities except for the Ministry of Education and Science (Ministry of agriculture, Ministry of Healthcare, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Sport and so on). Governance by the Ministry of Education and Science has the strongest effect on efficiency level among considered factors. Governance by regional authorities has the weakest effect. The total square of buildings available for the university appeared to be positively and statistically significantly related to efficiency level. While the autonomous status has no any effect.
Higher Education in Federal Countries: A Comparative Study is a unique study of higher education in nine federal countries—the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, China and India. In this book, leading international scholars discuss the role of federalism and how it shapes higher education in major nation-state actors on the world stage. The editors develop an overarching comparative analysis of the dynamics of central and regional power in higher education, and the national case studies explain how each federal and federal-like higher education system has evolved and how it functions in what are highly varied contexts.
The book makes a major contribution to higher education studies and defines a new field of comparative analysis. It also provides important insights into comparative governance and the study of federalism and federal arrangements, with their particular historical, political, legal and economic dimensions.
This chapter explores horizontal diversity in higher education in the context of high participation systems (HPS), focusing on differences in institutional mission, form and type, and internal diversity within institutions. The chapter starts with an analysis of scholarly approaches to diversity. The dominance of the market diversity perspective (‘deregulate to create more choices’) indicates not its profound relevance to the diversity issue, but the tenacious hold of marketization narratives on the policy imagination. Competition in higher education is mostly associated with less, not more, diversity. The chapter discusses four propositions in relation to diversity in HPS, highlighting decline in the overall diversity of institutional form and mission despite growth in systems, the rise of large multi-purpose institutions as the dominant form, and increased internal institutional diversity. When HPS are rendered more competitive in government-fostered quasi-markets, horizontal distinctions of mission tend to become vertical.
The paper discusses the development of the organizational practices in a Russian university under the influence of the environment. In the latter, the key factors are legislation and regulations of the Ministry of education and science. This influence is ambiguous and varies in different aspects, so to understand combined effect one needs detailed analysis using purposebuilt tools. The paper introduces such tool based on ideas of business model canvas by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur and organizational design theory by Henry Mintzberg. This instrument makes it possible to conduct a system analysis of the organizational design of the university, the integrity of this design and its fit to the environmental conditions. In particular, this analysis shows, how the system of restrictions and stimuli, created by the Ministry of education and science leads to the degradation of education quality in a classic university
anotation to the book is not available
Despite the differences in political, social, economic, and cultural histories, Brazil, Russia, India, and China share the common characteristics. The BRIC countries are very large in terms of population, territory, and economy. Each country has great economic and political influence in the regions, as well as dominance in education sphere (Altbach et al. 2013). They are emerging markets as their economies have been rapidly growing for the last decades while remaining lower middle income or upper middle income countries (World Bank 2016). The experience of these countries is critical for understanding the higher education system dynamics in large countries with limited resources.
This book constitutes the proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Massive Open Online Courses, EMOOCs 2019, held in Naples, Italy, in May 2019.
The 15 full and 6 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have marked a milestone in the use of technology for education. The reach, potential, and possibilities of EMOOCs are immense. But they are not only restricted to global outreach: the same technology can be used to improve teaching on campus and training inside companies and institutions.
The chapter 'Goal Setting and Striving in MOOCs. A Peek inside the Black Box of Learner Behaviour' is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.
The paper addresses the questions of data science education of current importance. It aims to introduce and justify the framework that allows flexibly evaluate the processes of a data expedition and a digital media created during it. For these purposes, the authors explore features of digital media artefacts which are specific to data expeditions and are essential to accurate evaluation. The rubrics as a power but hardly formalizable evaluation method in application to digital media artefacts are also discussed. Moreover, the paper documents the experience of rubrics creation according to the suggested framework. The rubrics were successfully adopted to two data-driven journalism courses. The authors also formulate recommendations on data expedition evaluation which should take into consideration structural features of a data expedition, distinctive features of digital media, etc.
Institutions affect investment decisions, including investments in human capital. Hence institutions are relevant for the allocation of talent. Good market-supporting institutions attract talent to productive value-creating activities, whereas poor ones raise the appeal of rent-seeking. We propose a theoretical model that predicts that more talented individuals are particularly sensitive in their career choices to the quality of institutions, and test these predictions on a sample of around 95 countries of the world. We find a strong positive association between the quality of institutions and graduation of college and university students in science, and an even stronger negative correlation with graduation in law. Our findings are robust to various specifications of empirical models, including smaller samples of former colonies and transition countries. The quality of human capital makes the distinction between educational choices under strong and weak institutions particularly sharp. We show that the allocation of talent is an important link between institutions and growth.