Education news at HSE University

Classes will begin on-campus on September 1 (for some graduate programmes on October 1), and wearing masks in university buildings and dormitories will be mandatory for all students and teachers. HSE University will arrange online learning with mandatory support from professors for newly enrolled international students who are currently unable to travel to Russia.

While many students readily embraced online learning, there were also many students who found it more difficult to complete their coursework due to technical difficulties. First-year students had the hardest time adapting to the new format, and low-income students also encountered many challenges. These are some of the findings of a survey conducted as part of a joint project between the Institute of Education, the Centre for Institutional Research, and the Institute of Distance Education of Tomsk State University.

The Joint Department with 1C will train highly qualified engineers and developers with mathematical expertise, strong research profiles, and a fluency in modern software tools. Department graduates will be able to effectively solve both system-related and applied problems in business automation.

HSE University has advanced to the 801-900 group in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as the Shanghai Ranking and now ranks in the 7^th-8^th place among Russian universities. Moreover, HSE University is the only Russian university to improve its standing in the ranking this year.

Ninety six university teams from all over the world participated in the main mathematics competition of the year. Typically, IMC takes place in Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria), but this year it was decided to hold the competition online due to the pandemic.

During this summer’s exams, HSE School of Foreign Languages and the Centre for Computational Educational Sciences launched a pilot project for the automated checking of student exams. Ekaterina Kolesnikova, Head of the School of Foreign Languages, Dmitry Abbakumov, Head of the Centre for Computational Educational Sciences, and Daria Kravchenko, Deputy Head of the centre, spoke about the project and its future prospects.

In December 2020, the HSE eLearning Office, together with the global online platform Coursera, will host the eSTARS International eLearning Conference.

From September 10 to October 8, the intensive educational programme U4Uonline will be held for universities that are integrating online courses from HSE University into their curricula. For the third time, the HSE eLearning Office will bring together regional universities for a professional dialogue on distance education.