The paper suggests a new approach to performance evaluation of universities in Russia and worldwide based on aggregation of the results of ten global rankings and the Database of External Quality Assurance Results (DEQAR). The method of league analysis (MetALeague) allows the authors to integrate the diverse results of ranking and evaluation regardless of considerable variations in ranking methodology and indicators. As a result of MetALeague integration, the Global Aggregated Ranking of higher education institutions has been made. The paper analyses the global rankings and the position of Russian HEIs in these rankings. The authors have also analyzed the positions of countries based on the number of HEIs included in the Global Aggregated Ranking. The due consideration of research results, according to the authors, can propel the leading Russian universities to higher positions in the global educational environment.

The article substantiates the relevance of the independence principle for the higher education quality assurance. Based on cases from the practice of recognized international agencies, an analysis of the procedures for ensuring their independence from the legitimate interests of the stakeholders in the field of higher education was undertaken. The characteristics of the Russian Federation realities in the field of the higher education quality assurance are given and a rationale for the ways of embedding the procedures of education quality assurance and accreditation of universities in the modern global higher education area is given.

There is an on-going debate in the literature on theoretical underpinnings of distance learning. Scholars consider different theoretical perspectives including but not limited to theory of independence and autonomy, theory of industrialization, and theory of interaction and communication through the lens of a traditional Learning Theory approach. There is a lack of discussion on a potential role of a newly emerging field of Learning Sciences in framing the theory of distance learning. Thus, in this paper we provide a theoretical analysis of the Learning Sciences as a new approach to understand distance learning in the era of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Learning Sciences is an interdisciplinary field that studies teaching and learning. This emerging innovative field includes but is not limited to multiple disciplines such as cognitive science, educational psychology, anthropology, computer science, to name a few. The Learning Sciences’ major objective is to understand and design effective learning environments, including distance learning, based on the latest findings about the processes involved in human learning.

In 2016-2018 the state in Russia adopted a package of program documents, which implies the transfer of education to the large-scale introduction of digital technologies. This phenomenon has been called “digitalization of education”. In scientific literature, electronization and digitalization are increasingly called one of the institutional traps for the development of Russian universities, since the corresponding institutional environment has not yet been formed due to the forced nature of innovations. As a result, the processes of introducing new technologies into education are still not regulated. Within the framework of the purpose of the study, the manifestations of the trap of electronization and digitalization of Russian higher education were analyzed on the basis of sociological data, and the theoretical modeling of the process of adaptation of educational agents to the institution of digitalization was carried out.

In the course of the study, the approaches were summarized that have been developed in discussions on educational digitalization. The article presents the author’s vision of the studied phenomenon as an institutional trap; as well as understanding of the institutional features and characteristics of electronization and digitalization in education.

The research method is the analysis of estimates obtained in the course of an expert survey which was conducted by the Vologda Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences among the representatives of the teaching staff of state universities in the Vologda region. In the course of this analysis, the indicators of educational digitalization as an effective innovation were clarified such as an increased accessibility of educational resources; simplification of communication and the process of transferring knowledge from teacher to student; increased opportunities for training specialists for the new (digital) economy; improving the quality of education in universities, etc. Based on the results of the empirical study, it has been determined that the conditions for the development of digitalization in Russian universities are currently ambiguous, which is closely related to the level of competitiveness of the educational organization.

The scientific novelty of the research consists in the presentation of an original matrix describing the process of university employees adaptation to the conditions of digital transformation of education. The matrix is proposed on the basis of a sociological analysis of the impact of the trap of electronization and digitalization on the activities of educational agents. The matrix can be taken into account in the practice of higher education management.

This paper reports on the findings of a study by design graduates on their belief and intention on ethical issues in the creative design industry. The study was conducted at two universities (University A and University B) in Malaysia, which included 120 undergraduates in design. A survey was conducted in which a questionnaire was distributed among respondents to determine their degree of agreement with respect to each argument in the questionnaire. The results of the data showed that the belief and intention of design graduates towards design ethics is poor, with the exception of the respondents of University A who have strong belief towards social, environmental and sustainability issues. These results indicate that a well-structured model of design ethics education and effective teaching mechanism for design ethics education should be in place. These would have an impact on students’ belief and intention towards design ethics. As such, the research results serve as a cornerstone from which the current practice of teaching and learning of design ethics education can be more critically examined, so that more changes can be made to the existing curriculum that can help to develop designers with ethical characteristics.

The article reveals some unresolved issues concerning the processes of planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating university education in modern conditions. The purpose of the study is to clarify what oppositions are currently being maintained, and what needs to be done to address problematic situations. Among the oppositions identified by the author, there are oppositions between the standardization and unification of education, which are opposed by the autonomy of universities and the individualization of the learning process; between thread-group organization of educational process, characteristic of the traditional system of higher education, and building of individual educational trajectory; between pedagogue-centered and student-centered paradigms of higher education; between the traditional system of education (teaching) and electronic learning (e-learning), between the old system of assessing students based on the exams in specific disciplines, and the need to determine the level of formation of competences; between academic and scientific models ofpostgraduate school.

The following research methods were implemented: a theoretical method (analysis of scientific literature, legislative and normative documents, teaching materials, internal local acts relating to the organization of the educational activities of the University), interpretation (comprehensive and systematic study of the object of study, comparing different objects of study among themselves, summarizing their theoretical and practical experience, etc.). In the study, based on the identified oppositions in the organization of the educational process at the University - standardization and unification of education, the conclusions were made about the need for thorough and comprehensive analysis of the existing management system of higher education and suggestions for its improvement and bringing into line not only with the requirements of legislative and normative documents regulating activity of the Russian universities, but also taking into account the interests of all the stakeholders interested in the learning outcomes and the preparation of competitive specialists.

The article addresses the issues of creating a virtual educational environment using special equipment. The 3DVista Virtual Tour program was chosen as the development environment for the virtual tour, using features related to e-Learning and automatic integration with LMS Moodle. The virtual space of the created educational environment provides an opportunity for the existence of various forms of educational communication, based on the capabilities of modern teaching tools and modern information and communication technologies, allows you to provide conditions for improving the quality of education, exchanging of views, and mutual consultation. The use of web-quest technology will allow young people to shape their common understanding of the profession, realize the demands placed on professionals in this sphere, will contribute to identify their personal and professional interests and aptitudes, and will also help schoolchildren and students to make independently and consciously their professional choice This technology fosters the development of communication skills and a more intensive exchange of information in the process of learning or mastering new academic material. All this ensures an increase in the level of professional competence of schoolchildren and students.

The author analyzes how the modern education system contributes to the formation of socio-economically determined choice of higher education, where the latter includes a decision on continue studying, choosing a university and specialty.

The functioning of the higher education system is analyzed in the context of the interconnections of education, the labor market and family resources, which reflect the movement of human capital and current trends in social mobility in Central Asia, as exemplified by Kazakhstan.

The article presents data from a study conducted among young professionals aged 21 to 29 years with a different level of education. The sample represents the Republic of Kazakhstan and amounts to 1000 respondents. The survey was conducted using the technique of personal formalized interviews at the respondents’ work place.

The data obtained indicate that the expansion of accessibility of higher education in Kazakhstan is accompanied by its stratification, which is projected in the inequality in the labor market for young people with a different «background» of family capital. This trend is hidden. The family’s resource capital affects the range of choice of educational trajectory (level of education, university, specialty), in the future, the level of education and prestige of a young specialist’s university determine career opportunities.

The case study research strategy describes variations in the educational and professional trajectories of part-time students in comparison with their attitude to distance learning, the goal of higher education, and their professional future of the individual. This research strategy makes it possible to present distance learning as a modern educational trend. It has been determined that in the system of continuing education, distance learning is (1) a tool for changing a profession, (2) part of a well-thought-out career strategy, (3) a guarantee of employment, (4) a way to legitimize a professional status, (5) a form that facilitates obtaining a diploma of higher education, (6) “future education”, education for the future. The subjective meanings of distance education in connection with motivation, the purpose of training, the attitude of students to it are revealed. For students receiving higher education, this is “self-education,” for those whose goal is a diploma, it is “formality”, “superficial mastering of disciplines.” The authors conclude that the consideration of correspondence education in the context of continuity allows us to identify trends in individualization, diversification (the diversity and variability of educational programs, creating opportunities for choice), informatization, and individualization. An assessment of the prospects for extramural higher education based on the experience of forced distance learning (March-June 2020) is given.

The article represents research in the field of the contemporary forms of economic development based on the knowledge which acts as a new productive force. It is shown that the new stage of economic development is connected to the transformation from the material forms to non-material forms of functioning and has its roots in the cultural revolution of 1970s. The reorganization of the university and the educational organization in European countries in general played the key role as preconditions of the cultural revolution. Marxist methodology was chosen as an instrument for the analysis of knowledge-based economy taking into account the need to develop Marx conception of general intellect (scientific knowledge) and revise the class theory and the theory of surplus value.

The key finding is that the contemporary knowledge-based economy implements both financial and productive tendencies in conjunction. It is shown that the predominance of one or another tendency depends on university’s discourse functioning which serves as a mediator between a subject of knowledge and the capitalism discourse. The first tendency reflects undesirable processes of social life: general intellect when it isn’t tied to the production, begins to develop according to the formula «G.I - G.I’», reproducing financial logic of capital increment. In such case, we deal with the process of knowledge submission to capital. The second tendency is connected with the dominance of productive function and defined in terms of cognitive capitalism, where knowledge-based intellectual labor gets its autonomy from capital. Cognitive capitalism represents such form of economic organization where knowledge, as a productive force, makes possible the intellectual productions which involve cognitarians - cognitive workers and producers which are able to create the innovative products. The maintenance and development of the cognitive capitalism become possible in connection with the correct organization of education at university which, in addition to the classic form of knowledge (hard skills), represents a contemporary digital space for the transfer of additional knowledge (soft skills) and serves as a platform for the organization of the effective forms of intellectual productions.

The paper addresses concerns of preparing the research article for publication in a high-ranking international journal. The paper argues how to develop the competence which is required for successful manuscript submission in the international peer-review journal. The analysis of the reasons for rejecting the manuscript submitted in international journals suggests considering a successful submission through the dialogue between the author and the discourse community of the journal selected for publication. The publication competence of the author is considered as the author’s ability to construct his/her position in the text or authorial voice. Bakhtin’s concept of voice allows interpreting authorial positioning in the dialogue with the discourse community selected for submission. While only the author’s position in the article is intentionally aligned with the epistemological, discursive, and rhetorical boundaries of the discursive community of the journal, the author’s voice may be approved by the community through publication. The approach adopted in the paper is based on Swales’ concept of discourse community and the concept of author’s positioning in academic text suggested by Ivanič. The structure of authorial positioning in the article is developed by using Schmid’s model of the narrative text. The publication competence of the author confirms his/her ability to construct authorial voice, which requires firstly determining the boundaries of the discursive community selected for publication through reading. When the author aligns his/her position in the manuscript with the community boundaries, the author’s voice is addressed to the selected community and it is able to convince the community in the validity of the researcher’s results. In conclusion, the structure of authorial positioning in the research paper is suggested for designing the curriculum of academic writing for publication purposes (ERPP) which aims at successful interactions between the author and the journal community at all stages of manuscript elaboration.