Challenges to regional universities in Russia: The case of Ural Federal Okrug

The paper aims to analyze the state of the higher education system in Russia and its role in the regional development. It also provides some recommendations on how to modernize universities, modify their functions and eventually integrate universities into the regional economy in order to lay down the foundation for a quantum leap in the implementation of the National Education Project at the regional level.It is shown that the way out might be creation of well-functioning co-ordinating bodies at the regional level that comprise the key regional actors including private sector and that take a long-term wider view of regional development, not just focusing on economic but also social, cultural and environmental development

Professional Training Scheme in USUE: COVID-19 Pandemic Impact

Over the past decades, the Russian tertiary sector has undergone profound changes caused by economic and social factors. The paper focuses on the challenges that modern universities are facing nowadays. One of the challenges is pedagogical and methodological professional development of academic staff, which has been affected by the COVID-19 crisis. However, a rapid shift to online teaching and learning has offered new opportunities to capacity building of staff and faculty who have learned and tested new tools and systems to enable distance teaching and learning. USUE case is considered

Changing the role of the Russian university teacher: The route to sustainable education

Nowadays, the changes in the university context confront educators with challenges and dilemmas, which make them seek new approaches to training graduates that will be employable in the national labour market. One of most essential issues is if faculty can meet the demands of the changing educational environment. Thus, in the present paper the authors aim to reflect on the content of teachers’ training in the Russian HE; to identify the existing weaknesses, needs and emerging issues in teaching practices and to match them with the best EU teaching practices, as well as to work out some recommendation for developing a sustainable teachers’ training model that targets to improve qualification of university teaching staff in educational methods and pedagogical approaches that are considered in the outcome-based and quality assurance context, which impart sustainable education to their students for better employability.

Environmental education as a tool of sustainable development of territories

The paper deals with the environmental element of the concept of sustainable development. The purpose of the paper is to explore the issue of municipal solid waste management in the Russian Federation and in Sverdlovskaya Oblast. More specifically, it examines the context for successful implementation of the National Ecology Project and the garbage reform against a background of public pressure. There is a need for an integrated approach to broaden the public ‘green’ outlook by engaging educational institutions, business organizations, and mass media. To maintain an ecological balance is in itself a way to ensure sustainable development of territories. The authors believe that environmental education may significantly contribute to raising awareness among consumers and producers for the purpose of sustainable development, and serve as a possible measure of preventing public discontent

Context-Based Testing as Assessment Tool in Chemistry Learning on University Level

Testing as an assessment technique has been widely used at all levels of education—from primary to higher school. The main purpose of the paper is to evaluate the effect of context-based testing in teaching and learning of analytical chemistry in a Russian university. The paper formulates the objectives of context-based testing, discusses its features and compares with conventional testing; proposes a model of constructing and administering context-based testing; provides examples of context-based tests. The experiment was conducted at the Ural Sate University of Economics (Russia) with bachelor’s degree students with nonscience majors. Students were assigned to one of the experimental conditions: in the control group, traditional tests were carried out, while the experimental group students experienced context-based testing. The statistical data—students’ test scores—obtained at all stages of the experiment were analyzed on the basis of statistical criteria (Shapiro–Wilk, Student’s T, Fisher). The findings of our experiment enable us to answer the guided research questions. Context-based testing may be considered as an essential component of context-based teaching and learning. In comparison with conventional testing, context-based testing could impact developing knowledge of fundamental analytical chemistry concepts and contribute to more solid knowledge

Effect of virtual analytical chemistry laboratory on enhancing student research skills and practices

This article aims to determine the effect of a virtual chemistry laboratory on university student achievement. The article describes a model of a laboratory course that includes a virtual component. This virtual component is viewed as a tool of student pre-lab autonomous learning. It presents electronic resources designed for a virtual laboratory and outlines the methodology of e-resource application. To find out how virtual chemistry laboratory affects student scientific literacy, research skills and practices, a pedagogical experiment has been conducted. Student achievement was compared in two learning environments: traditional – in-class hands-on – learning (control group) and blended learning – online learning combined with in-person learning (experimental group). The effectiveness of integrating an e-lab in the laboratory study was measured by comparing student lab reports of the two groups. For that purpose, a set of 10 criteria was developed. The experimental and control student groups were also compared in terms of test results and student portfolios. The study showed that the adopted approach blending both virtual and hands-on learning environments has the potential to enhance student research skills and practices in analytical chemistry studies

Approaches to text simplification : can computer technologies outdo a human mind?

Narrowly specialized information is addressed to a limited circle of professionals though it provokes interest among people without specialized education. This gives rise to a need for the popularization of scientific information. This process is carried out through simplified texts as a kind of secondary texts that are directly aimed at the addressee. Age, language proficiency and background knowledge are the main features which are usually taken into consideration by the author of the secondary text who makes changes in the text composition, as well as in its pragmatics, semantics and syntax. This article analyses traditional approaches to text simplification, computer simplification and summarization. The authors compare humanauthored simplification of literary texts with the newest trends in computer simplification to promote further development of machine simplification tools. It has been found that the samples of simplified scientific texts seem to be more natural than the samples of simplified literary texts since technical background knowledge can be processed with machine tools. The authors have come to the conclusion that literary and technical texts should imply different approaches for adaptation and simplification. In addition, personal readers’ experience plays a great part in finding the implications in literary texts. In this respect it might be reasonable to create separate engines for simplifying and adapting texts from diverse spheres of knowledge

Applications of standard and advanced statistical methods to TOC estimation in the McArthur and Georgina basins, Australia

Multiple potential shale-gas plays have been identified in Australia. Th total estimates of recoverable dry and wet shale gas exceed 157 tcf. Technological advances and more informed estimations of total organic carbon (TOC) abundance and distribution might further increase the assessments of recoverable shale gas. TOC content is known only at the depths where laboratory measurements on recovered core samples are performed. However, reliable estimation of potential resources can be based only on information about vertical and lateral distribution in organic matter throughout the prospective gas-shale reservoir. Ths information commonly is obtained from conventional wireline logs such as gamma ray, density, transit time, and resistivity. Methods routinely used for these estimations were developed for organic-rich shales from Northern American basins, where organic matter of marine Type I and Type II typically is observed. In prospective Australian basins, organic matter ranges from marine Type I to terrestrial Type III. Ths fact, along with different depositional history of Australian reservoirs, might lead to quite different logging-tool responses. Ths, the relations between the amount of TOC and estimation from logs might be quite different