Online Education: Prospects of Development in Russia

Nowadays two mainstreams of “Globalization of online education” and “Its individualization” can be observed in the area of distance and online education. This article aimed at outlining some possibilities of foreign-language online courses that meet the trends mentioned above, as well as identifying tendencies in the development of distance education in Russia. Our paper is devoted to the analysis of MOOC market, both on a national as well as a worldwide basis. MOOCs integrate virtual educational space at the global level and their main characteristics include massive involvement, openness, online interaction between students and teachers in chats, video conferences, forums, automatic assessment of student performance while performing tests, and the system of mutual evaluation of each other's works by students. To further investigate the subject, the following methods were used: system analysis, synthesis, and generalization, as well as the method of comparison when identifying main trends in the development and dissemination of MOOC.