Meeting of the UNESCO IITE Governing Board at the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

On September 13, 2013, in the framework of the annual session of the UNESCO IITE Governing Board, a meeting was held at the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. The agenda of the meeting was focused on discussion of the project on promotion of e-learning in the CIS countries though dissemination of massive open online courses (MOOCs).

The meeting was attended by the Deputy Minister of Education and Science V.S. Kaganov, directors and representatives of the departments of the Ministry, including Director of the International Department E.V. Ugrinovich, representatives of the "RIA Science", National Research University “Higher School of Economics", the Federal Institute of Development of Education, Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics, Moscow State Technical University named after N.E. Bauman, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering, Dendev Badarch, IITE director, and IITE staff.

In the opening address the representatives of the Ministry and UNESCO stressed the importance of development of a strategy for collaboration, in particular in the framework of the project proposed by UNESCO IITE “Promotion of e-Learning and Massive Open Online Courses in the Russian Federation and the CIS countries”, aimed at creation of a unified open educational space for universities of Russia and the CIS countries, exchange of open educational resources and opening access to educational courses.

In his speech, the Acting Director of UNESCO IITE Dendev Badarch presented main directions of activity of IITE, and the Head of Section of Digital Pedagogy and Learning Materials, Svetlana Knyazeva, outlined the objectives of the project, activities planned under its implementation, and expected outcomes. The project will be implemented by a consortium, which will include leading universities of Russia and the CIS countries. UNESCO IITE will be the leading partner in the consortium. The participants raised a number of questions related to the mechanisms of project implementation, licenses, and certification.

The following meeting of the working group of university representatives interested in the project is planned to be held in mid October 2013. The meeting will be organized at the UNESCO IITE premises. Information on the date and time of the meeting will be announced later.