=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2522/paper10
|storemode=property
|title=Research on E-Learning Development Trends as Russian Federation Economy Digitalization Direction
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2522/paper10.pdf
|volume=Vol-2522
|authors=Yelena Yu. Lukyanova,Nelli P. Shamaeva
}}
==Research on E-Learning Development Trends as Russian Federation Economy Digitalization Direction==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2522/paper10.pdf
100
Research on E-Learning Development Trends as Russian
Federation Economy Digitalization Direction*
Yelena Yu. Lukyanova1[0000-0003-2060-033X] and Nelli P. Shamaeva2[0000-0002-8241-3524]
1 V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University, Yalta, Russian Federation
2 Udmurt State University, Universitetskaya St. 1, Izhevsk, 426034, Russian Federation
lukianovahy@ukr.net
Abstract. Digitalization is changing business form in a digital reality based on
data. The first of all it means new business processes, organizational structures,
regulations, a new responsibility for data, new role models. This article represents
research results on e-learning development trends as the Russian Federation
economy digitalization direction. It is given educational startups market analysis
and its features. With startups help one can develop motivational systems that
have large opportunities within material presentation framework and interaction
with students. Statistical data on distance learning development in the Russian
Federation is described. Due to the large distances between educational centers
in the Russian Federation online distance learning is becoming increasingly pop-
ular. The growth of broadband Internet access penetration here also is a positive
factor for digital education development. Education as part of the economy must
be not only a kind of investment to future generations’ knowledge but also a
profitable area. Higher education institutions must be economically successful
for its sustainable functioning and it must receive profit from its activities. Also
e-education economic aspects mathematical model is suggested.
Keywords: E-learning, Digitalization, Startups.
1 Introduction
Nowadays the economy is characterized by digital transformation that is changing
business form in a digital reality based on data. The first of all it means new business
processes, organizational structures, regulations, a new responsibility for data, new role
models. Education as part of the economic structure is also involved in this process.
Digital transformation is not limited to the use of technologies such as Big Data, the
Internet of things, augmented reality, blockchain and so on. In relation to digital trans-
formation, all companies can be divided into two sectors: the virtual sector and real
companies’ one. Digital transformation will have its own characteristics for each of the
sectors.
* Copyright 2019 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
101
Education as part of the economy must be not only a kind of investment to future
generations’ knowledge but also a profitable area.
The article's aim is to make research on e-learning development trends as the Russian
Federation economy digitalization direction. It can be subdivided into tasks:
1) to describe digitalization tendencies in modern educational processes;
2) to analyze statistical data on the e-learning development in the Russian Federa-
tion:
3) to suggest e-education economic aspects, mathematical model.
2 Materials and Methods
In the article, there were used general scientific and special research methods to solve
the mentioned aim. There are economic modeling, graphical analysis, statistic, techno-
economic, system and structural analyses, expert estimation method. It was studied the-
oretical and applied papers on the research topic [1-15], also official statistics data.
3 Main content. E-learning development trends as the Russian
Federation economy digitalization direction
3.1 Digitalization tendencies description in modern educational processes
During the research, it was analyzed different digital transformation tendencies in
modern educational processes. The most illustrative from them are different educa-
tional startups that can be represented in different models:
There are a few business models for educational startups:
1. “Free course – paid certificate” business model. The sale of a paid certificate that
confirming the course passing is the most popular model primarily due to Coursera (the
project attracted 146,1 million dollars in 6 rounds from 12 investors, including the
World Bank and Yuri Milner who is the former Chairman Mail.ru Group Directors
Board).
2. “Paid course” business model. On the EdX platform “Professional Education”
section courses are paid. The EDX is registered as a non-profit organization and work-
ing on open-source software raised 30 million dollars from Harvard and MIT. They are
aimed at participants’ highly specialized skills development. Udemy paid courses be-
yond 500 Startups on Seed and Series A stages raised 113 million dollars in 5 rounds
from 16 investors, and also Insight Venture Partners. The Geekmath application au-
thored by Moscow State University associate professor offers courses in higher math-
ematics, statistics, linear algebra, econometrics, etc. The educational process is the
course studying by reading an interactive textbook that is written for the humanities and
includes problem solutions and a large number of comments. The course on economet-
rics consists of 10 topics that are divided into 32 lessons, and now it costs 119 rubles
and is intended for the general public.
3. “Selling a program that is formed from a set of courses” business model. This
model is used by Coursera that offers several courses that are formed into one vocation.
102
The same model is also used by edX that calls it the “Series of Courses”. For some
projects, it is cheaper to buy a package than paying for parts separately.
4. “Selling video” business model. The Russian Be smart project attracted 4 million
dollars from the Education Matrix in December 2013. It is a trading platform that pro-
vides free opportunity to place one’s own educational texts, graphics, audio and video
files, then to set a price and receive payments after viewing the mentioned materials.
The difference from YouTube channels is that on Besmart the videos are intended for
a not wide audience, so they will not be able to be achieved by a large number of course
visitors.
5. “Certain period subscription sale” business model. There are two types of sub-
scriptions:
A. Buying access to content. The most famous project in Russia in this area is Neu-
rology. It raised 2,7 million dollars in 2 rounds from Inventure Partners and Buran Ven-
ture Capital). The project team believes that when students pay for a period, they behave
better and learn on average two courses per month. In the world project, Lynda.com
has raised 289 million dollars in 2 rounds from 4 investors. The project specializes in
computer programs use courses including graphic editors, and it is very profitable.
B. Educational resources additional opportunities use. This model is called Free-
mium. The LinguaLeo project raised 3 million dollars in 3 rounds from 3 investors. The
project of the Free Innovation Research Institute Easy Ten is available with subscrip-
tion (on February 2018 annual subscription costs 699 rubles in the AppStore). Auto-
renewable subscription costs 2,99 dollars per month.
6. “Advertising” business model. This is a classic business model for online projects
and mobile application earnings.
7. “Programs with webinars” business model. Programs with webinars launched by
mentioned above Netology that specializes in online professions. A large number of
projects operate in this segment, and the most often such programs are difficult to fit
into the startup concept but they are educational business good examples. In this case,
the risk of large number programs is a need to recruit participants for each educational
flow.
8. “Programs with personal studies” business model. An excellent example of such
a business model is Skyeng (the project received a grant of 13 thousand dollars in 2012,
also Alexander Laryanovsky who is the former international development director at
Yandex was among investors). Unlike other educational projects Skyeng aims to study
only English with different levels and tasks.
9. “Educational environment additional and exclusive services providing” business
model. This one is the platform for educational and scientific Internet conferences with
a large number of participants for universities, and also a discussion platform. In the
Mendeley project, one can create databases for storage that are used in social networks
for scientists. The platform attracted 2 million dollars from 4 investors. Academia.edu
project raised 17,8 million dollars in 4 rounds from 8 investors. The project suggests
analyzing the content uploaded by the user and find similar research topics.
The list is not exhaustive but these business models can certainly be called the most
indicative in the market.
Also, there is a need to describe educational startups features:
103
A. The educational startup is a project developed by teachers together with program-
mers.
B. It is a product that allows children and adults to learn with the help of modern
technology.
C. If one speaks about the major educational startups they are always commercial
projects aimed to make a profit.
There is an illustration of an average bill for e-education on mentioned models (fig.
1)
250
250
200
200
150
100
100
80
50
25
10
0
Fig. 1. An average bill for e-education on the mentioned models.
104
Fig. 1 The field of Education Technology (EdTech) is one of the fastest-growing
areas. In this area, global investments are about 1 billion dollars. This market is still not
fully developed. If there are hundreds of platforms and applications for learning Eng-
lish, then there are free niches that await young inventors.
Novelty is the main advantage of educational startups. They offer to acquire
knowledge easily and are built in a way to make the process of education as interesting
as possible. This allows keeping the audience attention. Many programs select tasks
individually for the client based on one’s preferences.
A startup is an answer to a problem in society. It is impossible to create a startup
only on the desire to earn. This is usually associated with:
need for distance learning;
lack of money for education.
An educational startup combines modern technology and traditional learning. The
opportunity to study at home through the Internet is a solution that saves the time of
those who are constantly busy and also need knowledge.
Usually, startups cost either much cheaper than traditional education or even it is for
free.
Coursera as the project was created in 2012, but still remains confident participants
of the educational technology market. It was founded by computer science professors
from Stanford University Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. The resource is a typical
representative of the MOOC sphere that provides mass open online courses on various
topics. The service collaborates with universities, publishes educational materials and
invites users to take tests and examinations directly on the Coursera website.
Open Education is a platform that offers free online courses on basic subjects taught
at universities in Russia. The founders of the platform are the leading universities of
the country (Moscow State University, Saint-Petersburg State University, and others).
All courses are created to meet the requirements of state educational standards. After
course completing the user receives a certificate.
Codecademy is an online platform for programming language learning as such as
Python, PHP, JavaScript, Ruby, Java, HTML, and CSS. In total, this service is available
in 12 languages. Each user has own profile and gets reward points for tasks correct
execution.
Neurology is a Russian project where users get the opportunity to learn Internet mar-
keting, business management, design, and programming. It is taught by experts from
Google, mail.ru and Alfa Bank.
Foxford Portal is an online school where students are prepared for examinations and
Olympiads. The service offers school tutoring from the third to the eleventh grade.
GeekBrains is an online university for studying programming with leading IT spe-
cialists. A nice bonus is free materials providing.
HTML Academy is a site that offers interactive online courses on HTML, CSS, and
JavaScript.
Stepik is a platform for free online courses as well as lessons on a wide variety of
topics, prepared by leading universities in Russia.
105
3.2 Statistical data analysis on the e-learning development in the Russian
Federation:
Worldwide educational projects total investment amounted to 7,5 billion dollars in
2017-2018. 50% of the entire online education market belongs to the United States.
However, the growth of Asian one is evaluated in hundreds of percent.
The most popular is foreign language online learning including direct communica-
tion with native speakers. Online tutors, offline test preparation and corporate training
are also very popular. In the corporate training segment lifelong learning is gaining
popularity. That is the continuous process of personnel training in accordance with the
external environment changing, new tasks, etc. During research it was disclosed that
abroad remote technologies are used by many educational institutions:
─ Open University (UK);
─ National University of Technology (USA);
─ University of Pennsylvania (USA);
─ University of Western Governors (USA);
─ Canadian Open University;
─ University of South Africa;
─ National University of Distance Education (Spain);
─ The Open University of Israel;
─ Open University of the Netherlands;
─ Dutch Open University;
─ French National Center for Distance Education, etc
Due to the large distances between educational centers in the Russian Federation
online distance learning is becoming increasingly popular. The courses share is given
in fig. 2.
27,00%
38,00%
9,00%
12,00%
14,00%
The business courses market share
The programming courses market
share
Fig. 2. The different courses market share in the online education total cost structure in the Rus-
sian Federation
106
The growth of broadband Internet access penetration here also is a positive factor for
digital education development. Nowadays the Internet is applied by 73,41 % of the total
population. These factors influenced a number of Russian universities (Moscow State
University, Saint-Petersburg State University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Tech-
nology and others) which united created an electronic online learning platform “Open
Education” that was supposed to compete with large international projects.
About 100 universities implement distance learning. Some have from 20 to 100 or
even more branches. There is a network of correspondence schools, remote training
courses for students, the portal “Open Education”. Distance learning is used at all levels
of the educational system and in corporate training. In post-Soviet Russia Uralsib, Vim-
pelCom, Ministry of Railway Transport (since 2003), Sibneft, Severstal, Norilsk
Nickel, Sberbank, AvtoVAZ (since 2005) have become the pioneers of distance learn-
ing.
The target audience of distance learning programs is considered to be people aged
30 years and older, as well as people belonging to certain social groups – applicants,
disabled people, young mothers, military personnel, and also ones who are living in
remote areas. Distance vocational training is used to train lawyers, railway workers,
clergymen, and many other professions.
Secondary school e-learning is received by disabled children, villagers, children of
Russian compatriots from the CIS and Baltic countries. When companies use distance
learning they receive direct economic benefits that are reducing the travel and accom-
modation cost, almost not distracting employees from work processes. According to
SloanConsortium the most often distance learning was used by commercial educational
and training companies, financial organizations, IT companies.
The object of the study also highlighted two main segments in e-education:
─ scheduled courses that are possible to be accessed at the set time (directly online
training);
─ courses without a schedule (recorded lectures).
─ The main product of educational platforms is content. Today there are several ways
to produce it:
─ display of finished content (aggregators);
─ content adaptation (translation, consolidation);
─ use of custom content (service functions for translation);
─ content own production.
─ The main trends in the development of the global online education market are:
─ the growth of micro-courses popularity with one video duration for 1-3 minutes;
─ gamification that is tutorials presentation in the game form that allows keeping user’s
attention better;
─ augmented and virtual reality technology applying;
─ B2B market active development;
─ applied skills training growing popularity (the point of high interest in the Russian
Federation).
According to the expert's opinion, the most perspective is a hybrid model that in-
cludes online and offline education tools.
107
B2C segment includes:
─ the MOOC courses segment, open online participatory courses designed for an un-
limited number of students;
─ videos, including YouTube, social networks, etc.;
─ skype training;
─ mobile applications.
─ B2B segment includes:
─ corporate MOOC courses that are designed for employees training or development;
─ individual education solutions.
The research shows that more than the third of online education costs fell on business
courses in 2018. Also, it was analyzed data on more than 427 thousand bills worth over
1,4 billion rubles generated by Russian online training platforms with using the ATOL
Online ticketing service. By author's own estimation it is more than 70 % of the e-
commerce market (it was taken into account the purchases made in Russian online
stores and paid by electronic payments).
The total volume of the online education market taking into account independent
market participants is 21 billion rubles. These data reflect 31 online schools in Russia.
Four of them are on online platforms of the largest Russian universities and 27 are
independent educational online platforms. 1389127733 rubles is the total cost of online
courses paid by Russians on the Internet in 2018.
3.3 E-education economic aspects mathematical model
E-education must be economically successful for its sustainable functioning and it must
receive profit from its activities. As the mathematical model of such activity the authors
take equations:
𝑑𝑧
= 𝛼(𝑈 − 𝑧)𝑧 − 𝛾𝑧
𝑑𝑡
𝑑𝑁 𝑁
𝑑𝑡
= 𝐾𝑈𝑜 (1 −
𝑁𝑜
) − 𝐵𝑁 (1)
𝑑𝑝 𝐴
{ = 𝛾 [ − 𝐵𝑝]
𝑑𝑡 𝑃
The upper equation of the system (1) is a simulation model for a student’s knowledge
level z dynamics, α and γ are coefficients of student’s remembering and forgetting of
information that one is received during the educational process. U is the requirements
level for the student. The solution of this equation is:
γ
Z(t) dx Z(t) 1 1 1 1 z(o)[z(t)−(U− )]
∫Z(o) x2−(U−γ)x = −at = ∫Z(o) dx U−γ [ γ − ] = γ ln a
γ (2)
x U−
a x−(U−a )
a a z(t)[z(o)−(U− )]
a
Thence:
γ γ
z(o)[z(t)−(U− a )]
γ = e−a(U−a)t (3)
z(t)[z(o)−(U− )]
a
108
The solution of equation (3) is:
γ
z(o)(U− )
Z(t) = γ
−a(U− a )t
a
γ
γ
−a(U−a )t
(4)
z(o)(1−e )+(U− )e
a
𝛾 𝛾
If U > , that lim 𝑍(𝑡) = (𝑈 − ) (5)
𝑎 𝑡→∞ 𝑎
The lower equation of the system (1) describes the dynamics of the education cost P
А
depending on the demand and supply BP. A and B are the coefficients of supply and
Р
demand. Multiplying the right and the left sides of this equation by P, the authors get:
𝑑𝑝 𝑑 𝑝2
𝑃 = = 𝛾[𝐴 − 𝐵𝑃2 ] (6)
𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡 2
In the result of integrating equation (5) it will be received:
𝑃(𝑡) 𝐵𝑑𝑝2 𝐵𝑝2 (𝑡)−𝐴
∫𝑃(𝑜) 𝐵𝑝2−𝐴 = 2𝛾𝐵𝑡 = ln 𝐵𝑝2(𝑜)−𝐴 (7)
On solving equation (6) it will result:
𝐴 𝐴
P(t) = √ + (𝑝2 (𝑜) − ) 𝑒 −2𝛾𝐵𝑡 (8)
𝐵 𝐵
that makes:
𝐴
lim 𝑃(𝑡) = √ (9)
𝑡→∞ 𝐵
The middle equation of the system (1) describes the dynamics of the students’ numbers
that are studying at a given university. It needs to transform this equation into the form:
𝑑𝑁 𝐾𝑈𝑜 𝐾𝑈𝑜 𝐾𝑈
= 𝐾𝑈𝑜 − ( + 𝐵) 𝑁 = − ( + 𝐵) (𝑁 − 𝐾𝑈𝑜 𝑜 ) (10)
𝑑𝑡 𝑁𝑜 𝑁𝑜 +𝐵
𝑁𝑜
Here 𝑈𝑜 = 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡 is the intensity of advertising at the given e-education structure,
NO is the maximum number of students who have the opportunity to study at the given
university, B is the probability of student deduction and leaving from the e-learning.
The solution of the equation (9) is:
𝐾𝑈 𝐾𝑈 𝐾𝑈𝑜
𝑁(𝑡) = 𝐾𝑈𝑜 𝑜 + (𝑁(𝑂) − 𝐾𝑈𝑜 𝑜 ) exp {− ( + 𝐵) 𝑡} (11)
+𝐵 +𝐵 𝑁𝑜
𝑁𝑜 𝑁𝑜
That makes:
𝐾𝑈
lim 𝑁(𝑡) = 𝐾𝑈𝑜 𝑜 . (12)
𝑡→∞ +𝐵
𝑁𝑜
University income for the period Т∆ is:
109
𝐽+𝑇 𝐴 𝐾𝑈 𝛾
∆= ∫𝐽 (𝑝𝑁 − 𝑝𝑜 𝑍) = {√ × 𝐾𝑈𝑜 𝑜 + 𝑝𝑜 ( − 𝑈)} 𝑇 (13)
𝐵 +𝐵 𝑎
𝑁𝑜
in which 𝑝𝑜 is the expenditure of e-education structure funds per unit of knowledge,
𝐽 ≫ 1.
4 Conclusions
E-learning develops very fast in Russian Federation. And it is a rather profitable and
popular area. Educational startups are playing an increasingly important role. This is
due to distance learning technologies implementation in the educational process. But at
the same time, there are certain difficulties associated with teachers’ motivation, cur-
ricula and program preparation and approval at educational institutions, distance learn-
ing licensing courses development. To assess the potential of the online education mar-
ket in Russia, it needed to estimate the volume of related markets: the tutoring segment
and the corporate education market. According to available data, the aggregate market
of tutors in the Russian Federation is estimated at 26-30 billion rubles, while the volume
of the corporate education segment exceeded 70 billion rubles. The cumulative estimate
of both segments is ~ 100 billion rubles. By 2019 the share of online education in these
segments can reach 5-7%, which will be at least 6-8 billion rubles, of which most will
be in the corporate segment. The suggested mathematical model is very important for
the evaluation of e-learning effectiveness.
References
1. Akhavan, P., Ale Ebrahim, N., Fetrati, M.A., Pezeshkan, A.: Major trends in knowledge
management research: a bibliometric study. Scientometrics, 107(3), 1–16 (2016).
2. Allan, M.A.: Peek into the Life of Online Learning Discussion Forums: Implications for
Web-based distance learning. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed
Learning, 5(2) (2004).
3. Amoozegar, A., Khodabandelou, R., Ale Ebrahim, N.: Major trends in distance education
research: a combination of bibliometric and thematic analyze. International Journal of Infor-
mation Research and Review, 5(2), 5352-5359 (2018).
4. Boston, W., Diaz, S.R., Gibson, A.M., Ice, P., Richardson, J., Swan, K.: An exploration of
the relationship between indicators of the community of inquiry framework and retention in
online programs. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 14(1), 3-18 (2010).
5. Bozkurt, A., Ozbek, E.A., Yilmazel, S., Erdogdu, E., Ucar, H., Guler, E.: Trends in Distance
Education Research: A Content Analysis of Journals 2009-2013. The International Review
of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(1), 1–19 (2015).
6. Chahino, M.: An exploration of student personality type and success in online classes. Dis-
sertation, Northern Illinois University, United States (2011).
7. Ferguson, J.M., DeFlice, A.E.: Length of online course and student satisfaction, perceived
learning, and academic performance. International Review of Research in Open and Dis-
tance Learning, 11(2), 73-84 (2010).
110
8. Harasim, L.: Shift happens: Online education as a new paradigm in learning. The Internet
and Higher Education, 3(1), 41–61 (2000).
9. Gebara, N.L.: General self-efficacy and course satisfaction in online learning: A correla-
tional study. Dissertation, University of Missouri-Columbia (2010).
10. Liyanagunawardena, T.R., Adams, A.A., Williams, S.A.: MOOCs: a systematic study of the
published literature. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learn-
ing, 14(3), 202–227 (2013).
11. Macon, D.K.: Student Satisfaction with Online Courses versus Traditional Courses: A Meta-
Analysis. Dissertation, Northcentral University (2011).
12. Means, B., Toyama, Y., Murphy, R., Bakia, M., Jones, K.: Evaluation of Evidence-Based
Practices in Online Learning. Structure 15(20), 1-94 (2009).
13. Schoech, D., Helton, D.: Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of a Course Taught via Class-
room and Internet Chassroom. Qualitative Social Work, 1(1), 111–124 (2002).
14. Simonson, M., Schlosser, C.: Distance education research: a review of the literature, 124–
142 (2011).
15. Tallent-Runnels, M.K., Thomas, J.a., Lan, W.Y., Cooper, S., Ahern, T.C., Shaw, S.M., Liu,
X. Teaching Courses Online: A Review of the Research. Review of Educational Research,
76(1):93–135 (2006).