Distance Learning at SUSU is Now Available for Students From All Over the World

Fairly recently, only a few people believed that distance learning would ever be considered high-quality education. However, the digital economy has upended conventional wisdom, and today it is no surprise to anyone that the Internet provides a convenient tool for obtaining professional education or advanced training.

Brought to you by the South Ural State University

The South Ural State University is successfully implementing modern education technology, including e-learning – an education system using the newest information and Internet technology, as well as multimedia.

The SUSU Institute of Open and Distance Education (IODE) gives everyone a chance to receive both basic and additional education related to their professional activity. 9.5 thousand distance learning students obtained an education through digital technology at SUSU in 2017. Almost half of these people are those who wish via distance learning to receive a second higher education, complete their Master's Degree studies, and take advanced training courses. One-third of those who undergo online learning are high-school students who are receiving their first higher education.

"Higher education is available in 6 fields within the Bachelor’s program: Economics, Management, Construction, Law, State and Municipal Administration, and Pedagogical Education. You may also continue studies under the Master’s program in the most popular fields of our University: Economics, Law, State and Municipal Administration. The cost of one year of studies will be a pleasant surprise if compared to the prices of traditional intramural or intra-extramural forms of study — it starts at 700 US dollars per year. To make studying more convenient, we are uploading all the University’s education programs to Electronic SUSU, an education web-portal. This will help students get access to the classes’ materials and keep in touch with professors at any time. If a student does not understand something during classes, s/he will always have a chance to get a better understanding through using other resources individually," says Director of the SUSU Institute of Open and Distance Education Alexander Demin.

The web-portal provides practically everything you might need for successful studies: theoretical materials, algorithms for solving tasks, hints which will help you out if you have difficulties, practice tests, and reference materials. Students may "attend" their professors’ online lectures in person while staying home, or may watch videos of lectures later.

Another education innovation of South Ural State University is mass open (free) online courses (МООС), which allows its creators to demonstrate the advantages of the national education to an unlimited number of students from different countries around the world with various interests and levels of background training, thus forming certain university brands. Today, the SUSU’s distance learning web-portal holds over 2 thousand various courses for school pupils, students, postgraduates, professors and government employees. For instance, such courses as: “Governmental and Municipal Procurement Management”, "Foreign Language," "Psychology," etc. The web portal's simple interface instantly guides you to the materials you need. 

Alexey Vasiliev, marketing expert: “Working in a big company in Chelyabinsk, I, like many others, came across the system of bidding and procurement. In order to understand this process, I picked the course on "Governmental and Municipal Procurement Management" at the SUSU’s distance learning web-portal. I got all the knowledge I needed, and in a very short time too. Of course, a huge plus is that I could study from home at my own PC, since distance learning provides a great opportunity to both work and study. And I can choose the time and place for studying myself."

The number of those willing to study and to teach online has been increasing year by year. Today, 2,900 students from all over the world are distance learning at SUSU: students from Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Districts, the Amur Region, Yekaterinburg, the Republic of Bashkortostan, Moscow and the Moscow Region, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Turkey, Qatar, USA, Cyprus, and others. The procedure of submitting documents is very simple, that is why students from anywhere in the world can study at the SUSU Institute of Open and Distance Education.

You may apply for learning by any of the ways most convenient to you: online, by e-mail or regular post service, by visiting the university or one of its branches. A detailed guidance on all of the mentioned options is provided at the website.

“Implementing new teaching technology is convenient both for students, and professors. At present we are working on creating online courses for a large number of users. Our main goal here is to customize training courses, that is to provide an opportunity to choose your own personal learning trajectory. Such a course adjusts to a person, taking into account his/her individual peculiarities, amount of free time, knowledge of the Russian language, etc.," explains Alexander Demin, Director of the SUSU IODE.

Developing distance learning at South Ural State University aims at transforming the system of training specialists who will be in demand in the context of digital economy. Personal learning trajectories in education allow to comply with the changing market requests, and make the process of studying more efficient and interesting.