The article presents a new set of the accreditation criteria for engineering and technology educational programs approved and implemented by the Association for Engineering Education of Russia (AEER) since 2014. The criteria were developed in accordance with Russian professional standards, Federal State Educational Standards, as well as international standards such as EUR-ACE Framework Standards and Guidelines and IEA Graduate Attributes and Professional Competencies. In 2014-2015 the AEER accreditation criteria were piloted by the accreditation of engineering technicians and master degree programs offered by Russian universities and technical schools / colleges. The results of the criteria piloting are described and analyzed. The objectives for the development of Russian national accreditation system for educational programs in engineering and technology are defined, which include integration in internationally recognized structures such as European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education (ENAEE) and International Engineering Alliance (IEA).

The assessment of student's learning outcomes is a very important component of educational process during the whole study period. This is an integrated index which describes not only student's knowledge level, but implicitly - the level of learning process organization and quality of teaching disciplines. The article considers the point-rating system (PRS) as one of the applicable quality evaluation systems in education. The Russian higher educational institutes started to use the point-rating system not long ago and very often its implementation makes some problems both to students and educators. The article aims to analyze these problems and to produce a general idea of application of PRS at technical higher educational institutions. The authors reveal the main reasons why the universities fail to use its advantages and sometimes even discredit it. The proposed PRS model has been approved by two departments of Ufa State Petroleum Technological University, which succeeded in using its pluses and minimizing its weak points. We managed to increase the effectiveness of the educational process and to provide some benefits to all members of the educational process -students, educators and potential employers.

The article addresses the advantages and a number of problems of Master's training organization in a network form. Basing on network interaction, the project participants (four Russian universities) have designed the Basic educational program for Master's training in mechanical engineering. The partner universities have elaborated the unified methodological foundations for network basic educational program, the general principles for curricula development, measures for ensuring the academic mobility. The general organizational and methodological provisions are the following: full-time studies for all categories of students; mutual exchange of students between the universities cannot exceed one term; in the third semester students can choose the partner university to study; network training program should be implemented according to the principles of cooperation and the general methodological principles of educational process organization; the main types of students' activities are technology project activities, design and construction and research activity. As the network organization of the educational program is based on the competence approach, the universities faced the task to formulate the unified aggregated competences. The concerted list of aggregated competences includes three general and nine professional competences. The partner universities have to coordinate the conceptual fundamentals of student training in all partner universities.

The article discusses the perspectives of postgraduate training programs which received the status of the third level of higher education. The problems of postgraduate training organization and development in the new conditions are considered. The aim of postgraduate education modernization is to supply scientific and education organizations with highly qualified personnel inasmuch science and education now experience personnel shortfall. The new federal law "About Education in the Russian Federation" regards postgraduate education as the third level of higher education. A new model of doctoral training is designed to recover the production both of research specialists and university teaching staff. The author proposes to divide the doctoral training programs into two stages: the first includes the educational component and master's thesis preparation, and the second stage includes the research component and preparation and defense of doctoral thesis. Organization of doctoral training in new conditions requires the extension of a list of graduates' activities. The author argues that changing of doctoral training status can result in loss of quality of the research component of the domestic system of preparation of highly educated workers (researchers and university teaching staff).

In the framework of the discourse on the third level of higher education, we examine some issues concerning the definition of the goals of a new type of postgraduate school and the expected results of postgraduate training. Based on the comparison of current approaches to the formulation and implementation of the goals of postgraduate studies, the author substantiates the conclusion concerning the prospects of the «competency-based approach » oriented towards the labor market. Within this approach, the preparation of the dissertation is an important task, but not the only one. The main objective is to prepare experts who know not only their «own » field, but also the related fields of science, who are capable of working in research teams, who are prepared to research work, teaching and innovation, who are able to plan and solve the tasks of their own professional and personal development. Possible criteria and the format of the graduates' final state certification are also discussed. It is shown that in the framework of the existing postgraduate school model, the difference between the presentation of a research report on the main results of the postgraduate student's qualifying research work and the defence of a Candidate of Sciences dissertation will remain essential in most cases.

The article addresses tools that can tangibly improve the quality of theses on pedagogical sciences. First, we point out that no repressive measures taken by the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC) and dissertation councils can affect the quality of theses, because they regard thesis that have j ust been written. As the main problem the authors mark out social inertia. Overcoming of a formed tradition requires more than administrative measures but the formation of social and scientific mechanisms providing scientific rigor and relevance of a study. These are three mechanisms: a system of specialized scientific conferences (in the worst case - within HAC specialty, but differentiated thematically is more desirable), the system of specialized scientific seminars and the system of specialized scientific journals. All three systems work effectively in other sciences, both natural and human, and ensure the formation of investigator's adequate ideas about the obj ectives, goals, and problems of his research at the stage of its beginning, and not when it is already completed. Formation of the first two of these systems at least requires no additional resources except self-organization and volition of scientific community.

The paper addresses the experience of developing and implementing an online module in academic writing for university staff. The authors describe the module structure and teaching/learning process from the point of view of the course developers and trainers. The paper overviews the key requirements for developing and running online training in research writing. These requirements might be relevant for those involved in teaching, developing and implementing online support modules in academic writing.

The article addresses issues of vocational speech training, acquisition and mastering of students' written and oral speech. The author dwells on methodic aspects of formation of such skills as reading/hearing and understanding of texts, and also on formation of the ability to produce texts of various types and genres. Speech preparation includes personally social, personally professional interdependent components and forms, involves development of other personal and professional qualities, and stimulates professionalism growth. Analyzing various forms of the organization of educational process when studying rhetoric, the author suggests to get acquainted with an experience relying on the pedagogical principles of changing training stereotypes. This process requires succession, staging, and a definite set of professional speech genres taking into account all disciplines within curriculum. This approach allows to integrate speech-related disciplines with all other disciplines, and thus to intensify continuous process of education.

The article analyzes the negative trends in higher education development in the country caused by a change in the state education policy in terms of crisis, the optimization of financial costs, the intensification of the authoritarian-bureaucratic methods of educational institution management. The article adduces the results of the investigation on teachers' assessment of the modern state in higher school, the main directions of education reforms. The research touched on the issues concerning motivation and psychological climate in labor collectives in conditions of the implacable cutting down of the University network due to so called "optimization" of higher education institutions, bureaucratization of higher school activities. The author strongly argues that the continuous reforming of education system has not brought positive results, and expresses a hope in positive changes in this sphere owing to the inner capability of the pedagogical community.

Engineering education now faces the problems closely connected with the necessity to find new forms of education process organization. In these conditions the issue of teaching personnel retraining should be mentioned in the first place. The paper focuses on a role of a department responsible for core curricular programs development and discusses the status of a department chair and the principles of teaching staff formation. The chair must be a reputable scholar who holds a crucial leadership position. The chair is responsible for curriculum, planning, budget matters, personnel management, and for the department development. Besides, the chair must be a good practitioner in industrial work in order to establish external relations with enterprises and coordinate students' professional formation. One of the most effective and useful instruments to raise the quality of department activities is rating assessment of faculty in the main areas for definite periods. The author dwells on the problem of "feminization" of faculty members in engineering universities, women's predominance even in exceptionally "male" specialties.

This article discusses issues related to daily work activities of a professor of engineering and particularly dwells on the problems of methodology and teaching methods. The author expresses his own position on some issues concerning distant e-education. It is treated as an important addition to traditional education. Distance courses have additional options for teaching students, and possess a shared location for all necessary learning materials in every discipline. The paper substantiates a need to apply international CDIO standards. There is also discussed a relation between education standard and professional standard. The educational programs should be designed according to the employers' requirements, particularly in such areas as computer engineering and programming. An example of an application of new methods in teaching the discipline «Computer and peripherals» is presented.

Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod celebrates centenary. In his interview with the Editor, the Rector of the University E.V. Chuprunov sums up its main achievements. During all its history, the University solved the tasks that were set by the Government and responded to challenges of society, particularly, the faculties of radiophysics, physics and higher school of general and applied physics prepared specialists for the defense industry. Today the University is the participant of the Programme 5-100. The priority research area at the University is biomedicine and neurosciences promoting the formation of the biggest biomedical cluster in Russia. The new quality of research is provided by high-capacity supercomputer "Lobachevsky" using supercomputing technologies. The latest project that had won the state grant is connected with launching of the software package "Cyberheart".

The paper examines the problem of accelerated development of advanced education that requires multi-disciplinary training. Using the case study of a particular university successful experience the authors analyze the ways to obtain the necessary material and human resources including the best international expertise through the large-scale networking and implementation of major projects funded on a competitive basis. The need for a new management style is emphasized.

The article dwells on the history of a new Institute of Biology and Biomedicine that was established at Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod on the basis of the UNN Faculty of Biology and its biology research institutes. The purpose of the reorganization was to modernize the educational process with a focus on biomedicine and to develop biomedical research. The authors substantiate the strategy for inviting professors from leading universities in the world to give lectures and conduct research at IBBM on part-time basis. The role of visiting scholars in attracting extra-budgetary funding and improving the quality of scientific publications is discussed.

The paper presents the case study of strategic organizational change in Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod, a participant of the «5-100 Program». Key strategic objectives and technologies for organizational change of UNN over the past quarter century are described. The main result of the «soft» restructuring of UNN based on the project-oriented approach is formation of the project-oriented university without destruction of its basic departments. The flexible, mobile and dynamic structure has been created as an additional subdivision to fit the market demand for massive higher education. At the same time the basic university structure continued its development. A description of the main elements (strategic initiatives) of the «roadmap» for UNN's global competitiveness enhancement is given.

The article gives a brief information about the history of the UNN Radiophysics Faculty, about the system of education and scientific achievements of the Faculty and its ties with Russian and international research centers. Radiophysics Faculty was established in 1945 and it became the first faculty in the Soviet Union to prepare specialists in radiophysics for scientific research centres and laboratories of radiolocation and electrovacuum industry. "Students should get scientific knowledge at first hand" and "Teach to learn" are the main pedagogical postulates of the teaching staff. Fundamental physical and mathematical education and an individual approach are the foundations of learning process organization at the Faculty. There are two research schools for master's degree and postgraduate students at the Faculty: "Vibration and wave processes in natural and artificial media" and "Laser physics". Thus, the education process is closely connected with academic research.

The article describes some approaches to the organization of training of professionals for high-tech industries at the UNN Faculty of Physics using the resources of the Physical-Technical Research Institute of UNN. The paper presents a number of successful results of this activity. It is shown that the combination of fundamental training carried out at the classical Faculty of Physics and practical training at the Research Institute focused on the application of research results in the industry ensures a new level of quality for the competences of the University graduates.

The article focuses on the processes of internationalization of the activities of National Research University. The role of internationalization in the development strategy and in management of the university is discussed. Principal technologies and mechanisms for internationalization of education, research and innovation are characterized. Considering university as an object of internationalization, the author uses so called "tetrahedron of knowledge" model. According to this model the main functions of university are education, research and innovation. The international dimension is integrated in education process, research and innovation activities for the purpose to ensure acquisition of the qualities of "global innovators" by the graduates. The article shows the key results and prospects of further development of internationalization aimed at enhancing the University competitiveness among the world's leading scientific and educational centers. Particularly, the University became one of the 15 participants of the «5-100» Program and got a special grant.

The article addresses pedagogical technologies of integration of foreign students into the educational space ofRussian higher education institution. According to the author, the called pedagogical technologies include technologies of training, and also technology of sociocultural integration of foreign students into the Russian society and culture. A special attention is paid to the training technologies aimed at integration of foreign students into educational process ofRussian higher education institution. It is defined that the technologies of training of foreign students in international groups represent a combination of specially adapted interactive methods of training and multilingual information technologies. The conditions of use of interactive methods of training in groups with an international structure of students are revealed. On an example of the international groups including Chinese students the author explores specifics of application of the pedagogical training technologies promoting integration of foreign students into educational process.

The paper analyzes the state of an interaction between a HEI and employers in the context of education modernization, reveals the causes why the social partnership between higher school and the labor market continues to be ineffective. The survey data regarding the key forms of the partnership (243 experts of recruitment agencies, employment consultants involved) showed that most of employers are not interested in personnel replenishment. They are not ready to participate in education process and to invest in target training of specialists. The authors outline the strategic benchmarks of social partnership development towards shaping the national system of qualifications, designing professional and educational standards in the competence format.

The article deals with the relevance of participation of Russian higher education institutions in the world university rankings, and outlines its main perspectives. The author describes the features of the effect of scientometric indicators on the dynamics of rating positions on the example of QS University Rankings: BRICS. The author adduces the results of the correlation and regression analysis of the dependence of the rating position on the number of paper citations. The analysis is made with the use of the model of ordinary linear regression. These results demonstrate a direct but weak dependence between the studied parameters. The authors concluded that in the planning of measures to strengthen the university position in the ranking of QS University Rankings: BRICS one should not be limited only by publication activity. It would be appropriate also to develop activities aimed at improving the various rating indicators (the level of teaching staff, internationalization of the educational process and others).

The article emphasizes the importance of coordination of informatics and medical informatics teaching between Universities in conditions of advancing informatization of healthcare and fast IT development. Competencies of medical graduates for adaptation to modern market depend on the study of medical informatics. The discipline study should be divided into three modules. The first deals with representation of different kinds of information, the second - with the analysis, and the third - the use of information. The modules may be learnt in different semesters. Further the information competencies of future doctors continue to develop while studying clinical subjects. The use of learning electronic medical records, computerized workplaces for medical personnel, medical decision support systems is supposed. The final stage of the information competencies formation includes the elective courses on telemedicine, bioinformatics, imaging, 3d-modelling etc. The authors consider the formation of the competencies of information support for professional decisions to be an educational mission of medical informatics chairs.