Publications

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are increasingly popular among students of various ages and at universities around the world. The main aim of a MOOC is growth in students’ proficiency. That is why students, professors, and universities are interested in the accurate measurement of growth. Traditional psychometric approaches based on item response theory (IRT) assume that a student’s proficiency is constant over time, and therefore are not well suited for measuring growth. In this study we sought to go beyond this assumption, by (a) proposing to measure two components of growth in proficiency in MOOCs; (b) applying this idea in two dynamic extensions of the most common IRT model, the Rasch model; (c) illustrating these extensions through analyses of logged data from three MOOCs; and (d) checking the quality of the extensions using a cross-validation procedure. We found that proficiency grows both across whole courses and within learning objectives. In addition, our dynamic extensions fit the data better than does the original Rasch model, and both extensions performed well, with an average accuracy of .763 in predicting students’ responses from real MOOCs.

Popularity of online courses with open access and unlimited student participation, the so-called massive open online courses (MOOCs), has been growing intensively. Students, professors, and universities have an interest in accurate measures of students' proficiency in MOOCs. However, these measurements face several challenges: (a) assessments are dynamic: items can be added, removed or replaced by a course author at any time; (b) students may be allowed to make several attempts within one assessment; (c) assessments may include an insufficient number of items for accurate individual-level conclusions. Therefore, common psychometric models and techniques of Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT) do not serve perfectly to measure proficiency. In this study we try to cover this gap and propose cross-classification multilevel logistic extensions of the common IRT model, the Rasch model, aimed at improving the assessment of the student's proficiency by modeling the effect of attempts and by involving non-assessment data such as student's interaction with video lectures and practical tasks. We illustrate these extensions on the logged data from one MOOC and check the quality using a cross-validation procedure on three MOOCs. We found that (a) the performance changes over attempts depend on the student: whereas for some students performance ameliorates, for other students, the performance might deteriorate; (b) similarly, the change over attempts varies over items; (c) student's activity with video lectures and practical tasks are significant predictors of response correctness in a sense of higher activity leads to higher chances of a correct response; (d) overall accuracy of prediction of student's item responses using the extensions is 6% higher than using the traditional Rasch model. In sum, our results show that the approach is an improvement in assessment procedures in MOOCs and could serve as an additional source for accurate conclusions on student's proficiency.

This paper is devoted to the analysis of the MOOCs by the example of NRU HSE MOOCs on Coursera. It is assumed that the user’s behavior at the MOOCs depends on a number of factors, such as the name of the course , language, theme, etc. Thus, in this article we attempt to analyze the MOOCs and predict the profitability of an online course with certain parameters that allow to pre-determine and configure the parameters for creating a MOOCs demanded by the audience.

The article presents the results of research on validity of peer-review assignments in massive open online courses within the framework of classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT). CTT-based analysis yielded data on convergent validity of the peer-review assignment, the low level of its criterion validity, and rater disagreement. IRT-based analysis revealed rater bias and established that experts largely tend to be lenient and overrate their peers. The findings are used to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the psychometric theories in question and the opportunities for combining the two.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the Durkheim’s “The Division of Labor in Society” in the case of the sociology of emotions. Social solidarity problem is one of the fundamental problems of sociology. There is an opinion that it is impossible to resolve the social solidarity problem excluding emotions. “The Division of Labor in Society” is one of the main works in the field of social solidarity. Durkheim considered and characterized types of social solidarity. But in contemporary science, the authors prefer “The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life” for the analysis. It makes an omission in the study of origins of the sociology of emotions and the role of emotions in maintaining social solidarity. Durkheim’s ideas have rethinking and reflection in the work of the contemporary sociologists of emotions. The article demonstrates current authors rely on their arguments on the Durkheim’s ideas. The aims of the paper are to identify background of the sociology of emotions in “The Division of Labor in Society”, to present how Durkheim determined the social nature of emotions, their role in the description of the social solidarity types, what types of emotions are involved in creating social ties from the position of Durkheim. With the help of Durkheim’s ideas, we can identify the outlines for solving the problem of social solidarity.        

We can make a conclusion that the role of emotion in the maintaining of social solidarity changes with the change of the social solidarity types in the Durkheim’s concept. Mechanical solidarity is based on common ideas, feelings; the individual is completely absorbed by the collective. Crimes arouse negative emotions such as anger, revenge, and shame, which are become instruments of protection. Sympathy exists only in the institutions of family and marriage. In opposition, organic solidarity is based on the division of social labor; the collective is replaced by the individual. As a result of changing social solidarity type, the positive emotions participate in its reproduction: altruism, sympathy, that going beyond the family and friendship and appearing in the labor relations, happiness. In the Durkheim’s concept emotions have to be common and collective for the reproduction of social solidarity. Kind of specific emotions doesn’t very important. Social solidarity can be destroyed by the loss of the collective nature of emotions. In conclusion, Durkheim’s ideas can be relevant for contemporary society and can be the basis for further development of the solution of the problem of social solidarity in the field of the sociology of emotions.

It’s common knowledge that today’s education is becoming more open and easily accessible; consequently, it is not limited by the boundaries of countries and regions. Moreover, online communication allows the educational processes to transpire irrespective of the territorial boundaries: not only the number of students is growing, but also their cultural identities are becoming more diverse. Nowadays are facing new problems caused by different world views, specific types of educational discourse, various information processing strategies etc. This book describes the prerequisites for development in the area of crosscultural didactics. This approach is based on research studies of differences between mentalities, ways of working with educational information, culturally-specific teaching methods and teaching techniques that determine differentiated approaches to the choice of multimedia technologies in education system. Cross-cultural multimedia didactics may be viewed as a combination of cultural, psychological and pedagogical aspects, of culture specific pedagogical discourse, unique features of ergonomic design of educational resources, cognitive and pragmatic features and specific methods and forms of teaching and, therefore, is set to become one of the most important trends in contemporary education system.

This book will be of interest not only to professional, who work in modern cross-cultural education environment, but also to a wide range of readers interested in cross-cultural communication.

The paper is devoted to the main aspects of using MOOCs as a part of university curriculum. HSE University has the expertise of implementation of blended learning using our own 53 MOOCs on Coursera and 27 MOOCs on Russian National Open Education Platform and courses of other universities. The emphasis will be on institutional decisions, organizational schemes and management solutions that allow to recognize MOOCs’ results and transfer them into university credits (ESTC).

This paper is devoted to the investigation of the problem of the information educational environment formation and the teaching process design in polycultural audiences in the information society. We consider various educational models and its elements, as well as ways of the educational process design, takin into consideration the specific national characteristics of all members of the educational audience.

To date, Russian cosplay community has thousand members from all over the country, and the word "cosplay" is widely used in media. Despite its prominence, cosplay remains a fan practice or, using Henry Jenkins’ term, participatory practice. In participatory culture (or cultures) fans not only consume media content but actively interpret it and make their own. This article attempts to restore the history of Russian cosplay – its development and its perception. Using media publications from newspapers and magazines that are not directly related to mass culture, we gain a view from outside the community and analyze different context of the usage of the word "cosplay". In sum, we try to answer the question if russian cosplay community and cosplay itself are stigmatized as a part of participatory culture or not.

It’s common knowledge that today’s education is becoming more open and easily accessible; consequently, it is not limited by the boundaries of countries and regions. Moreover, online communication allows the educational processes to transpire irrespective of the territorial boundaries: not only the number of students is growing, but also their cultural identities are becoming more diverse. Nowadays educators are facing new problems caused by different world views, specific types of educational discourse, various information processing strategies etc. This book describes the prerequisites for development in the area of cross-cultural didactics. This approach is based on research studies of differences between mentalities, ways of working with educational information, culturally-specific teaching methods and teaching techniques that determine differentiated approaches to the choice of multimedia technologies in education system. Cross-cultural multimedia didactics may be viewed as a combination of cultural, psychological and pedagogical aspects, of culture specific pedagogical discourse, unique features of ergonomic design of educational resources, cognitive and pragmatic features and specific methods and forms of teaching and, therefore, is set to become one of the most important trends in contemporary education system.

The paper describes the experience of development, validation and psychometric analysis of Russian as foreign language placement test (grammar and vocabulary part). The aim of the study was to measure the validity of the placement test, which was designed strictly according to the standards of Russian as a foreign language proficiency levels. During the psychometric analysis such parameters as difficulty, dimensionality, reliability and separation index were examined. As a result, the ways of improving test validity were suggested.