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The Digital Revolution in Education: Opportunities and Risks for Classical Universities
The article discusses the main trends in structural and institutional changes in the global educational space under the influence of the digital revolution, which have changed the target functions and functioning models of classical universities.
It is shown that the most important institutional result of the digital revolution in education was the formation of an educational Greenfield cluster, which supplies massive open online courses and educational content focused on individual demand to the educational services market. Producers - corporate universities and virtual "thought factories" (providers of educational continents) have formed a new architecture of the educational space.
The thesis is conceptually substantiated that the cluster of universities in this new subject structure of the educational space retains the function of a key institutional platform that produces accumulated knowledge, intellectual resources, tangible assets and symbolic capital in its educational ecosystems. It is emphasized that, unlike the educational structures of Greenfield, the classical university reproduces the functional trinity of education, research, upbringing (which is their generic feature), сomplemented by the missions of innovation and entrepreneurship, ensuring the internal homeostasis of the university ecosystem.
The digitalization of the educational environment is defined by the author as a technological driver that makes it possible to implement global educational initiatives, but at the same time carries a number of institutional risks - the loss of the systemic unity of educational functions with other missions of the university (research, educational), their isolation and commercialization, reduction in the educational ecosystem shares of “living knowledge”, loss of orientation towards fundamental knowledge (including worldview), displacement of search and prognostic types of thinking by algorithmic, clip-based ones.
Based on the analysis of modern strategies, programs, and instruments of the state educational policy in Russia, a conclusion was made about their targeted orientation towards maintaining and developing the unity of the three missions of universities - education, research and education.
It is shown that the most important institutional result of the digital revolution in education was the formation of an educational Greenfield cluster, which supplies massive open online courses and educational content focused on individual demand to the educational services market. Producers - corporate universities and virtual "thought factories" (providers of educational continents) have formed a new architecture of the educational space.
The thesis is conceptually substantiated that the cluster of universities in this new subject structure of the educational space retains the function of a key institutional platform that produces accumulated knowledge, intellectual resources, tangible assets and symbolic capital in its educational ecosystems. It is emphasized that, unlike the educational structures of Greenfield, the classical university reproduces the functional trinity of education, research, upbringing (which is their generic feature), сomplemented by the missions of innovation and entrepreneurship, ensuring the internal homeostasis of the university ecosystem.
The digitalization of the educational environment is defined by the author as a technological driver that makes it possible to implement global educational initiatives, but at the same time carries a number of institutional risks - the loss of the systemic unity of educational functions with other missions of the university (research, educational), their isolation and commercialization, reduction in the educational ecosystem shares of “living knowledge”, loss of orientation towards fundamental knowledge (including worldview), displacement of search and prognostic types of thinking by algorithmic, clip-based ones.
Based on the analysis of modern strategies, programs, and instruments of the state educational policy in Russia, a conclusion was made about their targeted orientation towards maintaining and developing the unity of the three missions of universities - education, research and education.
digital revolution; Greenfield in education; modern university; classical university model; university mission; educational space; digitalization; transformation; globalization; educational ecosystems