Within Project 5-100, one of the priority fields of South Ural State University development is the creation of a modern online education environment. In 2018, a Strategic Academic Unit (SAU) called Smart Education was created, which implies new approach to teaching.
The goal of the Smart Education SAU is to transform SUSU in to a student-oriented university, where people with all kinds of academic and professional experience can find a wide range of quality education offers based on modern teaching technologies.
The Smart Education SAU implies the creation of an open academic model which focuses on individual development of each student and offers the best opportunities to SUSU graduates. The SAU will facilitate the promotion of the university in international rankings QS and THE by improving its reputation in the academic community.
The SAU involves creation of new, in-demand software, development of distance and mixed education in basic higher education, strengthening and development of partnerships with industry, expanded use of data-drive for managing the academic process, and implementation of artificial intelligence methods and data mining in electronic pedagogy.
The fulfilment of the Smart Education SAU will result in the restructuring of academic programmes, increased efficiency of attracting students and postgraduate students, and implementation of problem-oriented and project-based approaches. New academic programmes will be developed together with Russian and international partners. The use of online educational resources will reduce the online classroom load and allow for more flexibility in the academic process. By introducing adaptive teaching technologies, the efficacy of courses will be improved. New courses on entrepreneurial skills will be fulfilled in various educational programmes of the university.
Thanks to the SAU events, research and development work will be supported through the development and outfitting of laboratories, and a system for attracting young academic staff will be established. The SAU also includes plans to attract leading Russian and foreign researchers, create a system of grants to support academic staff and students, create motivation to publish papers, and getting university journals included into the Scopus and Web of Science databases.
Read more about online education at SUSU here.