Purpose of research. Today, one of the main tasks of distance education is a personification of learning, taking into account the mental and physical states of students. Therefore, the purpose of research, conducted by the Institute of Distance and Additional Professional Education of Ulyanovsk State Technical University is to develop a model of a regional distance education system for persons with disabilities based on an inclusive paradigm. One of the model’s components is the organization of training methods, the identification of which was the original purpose of the study, the intermediate result of which is described in the proposed paper.

Materials and methods. In order to achieve the purpose of the research, we use a systematic approach, since the inclusive regional distance education system for persons with disabilities is a part of the social system with its structure, characteristics, principles, and laws of development, and a subject-subject approach based on the idea of the individual’s subject activity in his/her life processes.

The paper provides a brief retrospective analysis of the distance education development in Russia and abroad. The foreign authors’ works in the field of distance education (D.R. Garrison, B. Holmberg, M. Jeffries, D. Keegan, O. Peters) belong to an earlier period and serve as a starting point for Russian scientists A. Andreev, E. Polat, V.Soldatkin, V. Tikhomirov, S. Shchennikov.

A number of well-established classifications of training methods are given and the thesis is suggested that technological innovations lead to a significant expansion of pedagogical methods and techniques, pedagogical innovations that affect the nature of distance education activities for people with disabilities.

Results. The result of the first stage of our research work is the propose and description of the author’s methods of organizing the education for children with disabilities: the method of adaptive and expert borrowing, the method of variable and dual training, the method of evolutionary and expert development, and the method of inclusive group virtual learning. These methods expand pedagogical

knowledge. The authors validate feasibility of the possibility of borrowing the benefits of e-learning to study humanities, natural and technical sciences, and propose the tools that allow adapting training to the students’ characteristics, regardless of their physical disabilities. Since the introduction to various fields of activity is difficult for children with disabilities, a dual education system based on the interaction of vocational education institutions and enterprises may provide an opportunity to try themselves in different professions. A virtual company is proposed to be an “employer”.

Conclusion. The project deliverable will be a model of an inclusive regional distance education system for children with disabilities, developing and supplementing the theoretical, methodological and technological foundations of e-learning. In the future, a set of conditions for the functioning and development of an inclusive regional distance education system for children with disabilities will be identified, causing the learning process in the system under study. This system is characterized by the use of distance learning technologies with adaptive and expert support of the educational process, borrowing the benefits of e-learning from various areas of knowledge, and defining organizational, technical and pedagogical support for the implementation of the learning process for persons with disabilities.

The aim of the research is to develop a prototype of the intelligent multi-agent system for dynamic interaction of the intelligent agents in the integrated information and educational space to solve the problem of formation of joint educational programs by several educational institutions.

Materials and methods. In modern conditions of digital transformation of education the organization of network training of students on dynamically formed educational programs in accordance with the needs of the labor market and the individual requirements of students is becoming increasingly important. It is proposed to develop a software platform based on intelligent multi-agent technology for flexible integration of educational resources and implementation of joint educational programs by several interacting educational institutions. As a basis for the development of the software prototype architecture, the specifications of the developer community for the standardization of agent technologies FIPA (the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents), and the software tool environment – JADE framework (Java Agent Development Network) were chosen.

Results. The paper presents the architecture of intelligent multi-agent system for network interaction of educational institutions in the integrated information and educational space, which allows to dynamically forming educational programs in accordance with the requested professional competencies. The structure of the ontology of information and educational space, providing the interaction of intelligent agents, is justified, and the mechanism of its display from the OWL format to the format of the tool environment JADE, using the plugin Protege is described. The description of the software prototype, the structure of intelligent agents in the JADE format and the technology of agent interaction, based on the FIPA protocols in the process of educational programs formation is presented.

Conclusion. The implementation of the multi-agent system prototype for network interaction of educational institutions allows you to quickly create educational programs in accordance with individual and group learning trajectories under the specific formed professional competence. The presented software prototype with some modification can be used for other subject areas of the digital economy, involving the dynamic formation of network structures of interaction for business partners.

The purpose of the study. In the economy of the 21st century, knowledge is the main source of obtaining sustainable competitive advantages of enterprises, and knowledge management (KM) is the main mechanism for ensuring and maintaining it. People and knowledge they possess, know-how, ability to innovate, trust relationships with customers and partners, and other intangible assets are becoming the most important sources of development for an organization. KM is traditionally carried out with the help of the following components: information technology, organizational processes and structures, corporate culture and people. In addition, there are complex tools of KM, which usually combine several KM components: a library of documents (knowledge base, corporate memory), communities of practice, lessons learned, etc. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the application of KM practices in companies in the oil industry of the Russian Federation.

Materials and methods. This article used the analysis of secondary data sources, and also reviewed in detail two cases, describing KM in the activities of oil companies in Russia. In order to understand at what stage is the development of the knowledge management system (KMS) in oil companies of Russia it’s necessary to compare the use of KM tools in foreign and domestic practice, this paper is based on information, provided in open sources. Observations are formed and the most prominent examples of the use of KM tools are indicated.

Results. The article provides an overview of KM tools, examples of their use in the oil and gas industries, and also examined the domestic practice of their use, based on cases of Russian oil companies. Examples of the use of KM tools, based on technologies and employees in foreign and Russian oil companies are pre-sented. On the example of cases of two well-known Russian oil companies, the stages of formation and de-velopment of knowledge management system in a company were considered, specific practices of KM, which appeared in companies at the respective stages of KMS development, were presented, as well as fea-tures of KM in each company.

Conclusion. For a number of reasons, oil companies are advocates of the proactive use of KM systems. In the course of the analysis, the trends of KM in the oil sector of the Russian economy were identified: com-plexity of use, poor acceptance of innovations, not related to production/technological processes, the begin-ning of the emergence of a policy of active knowledge sharing, a move towards creating a flexible KM sys-tem. This article will draw the attention of Russian managers to the issue of knowledge management and other intangible assets and identify management practices that will help Russian companies to successfully develop and compete, based on their intellectual capital. The article will also be of interest for specialists in knowledge management and practitioners from related fields.

Purpose of the study. The aim of the study is to create a course on modern cloud technologies based on the openstack cloud virtualization platform.

The popularity of the openstack platform makes it the main platform for building cloud technologies in many large Russian and international companies in various business areas.

In the process of developing the course, the goal was to adhere to the principles of open education.

Development of the course was motivated by the growing popularity of cloud technologies in most IT companies and demand for qualified specialists in this field.

Materials and methods. Analytical reports in the field of modern trends in the development of cloud technologies, materials on current trends in hiring employees by industry, as well as official documentation on projects, used in the course are selected as the main materials for the study.

During the development and implementation of the project, the following pedagogical techniques were used:

• acquisition of new knowledge based on pre-existing one;
• teamwork and demonstration of communication skills; making educational hypotheses to resolve problematic situations;
• planning to achieve the goal (getting results);
• private methods of students’ learning activities (detailing the tasks, initial conditions and the course of the study).

Results. As a result of the study, the necessity of creating an educational course for students was substantiated, and a special course was developed for teaching the openstack cloud virtualization platform, which includes the necessary materials (presentations, lectures, seminars, as well as a platform and laboratory stands for students with access via the Internet).

A special course web page was created where potential students have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the description and basic components of the course, send a request for participation, and also get access to the materials (after confirmation of the participant by the administrator).

Every year, the developed materials, the platform and laboratory stands are updated due to the release of new versions of openstack, adding new functionality and updating business needs.

Conclusion. In conclusion, a decision was formulated on the advisability of creating a special course for students and specialists. The developed course was tested in leading higher educational institutions of the country, and is a convenient tool for both students and companies, interested in qualified personnel in the field of cloud technologies.

The special course was tested on students of the Faculties of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, the Faculty of

Mechanics and Mathematics of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Innopolis University and Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics.

According to the results of the special course, students were selected for internships and practical training, which confirmed the effectiveness of the developed course.

The purpose of this study is to analyze possible problems in issuing digital diplomas, using the blockchain technology, and to promote solving these problems as well as to show the possibility of practical implementation of the blockchain technology, using a test example.

 Materials and methods. The study included a review of bibliographic sources on the use of blockchain technologies in the education system, as well as computer modeling of the task of registering and verifying a digital diploma in the blockchain.

Results. In the course of the work, a model of the process of issuing and verifying digital diplomas was built, and a number of problems related to the practical implementation of this model were also considered.

At the same time, the following groups of problems that restrain the spread of blockchain in the education sector of the Russian Federation were identified: technical and technological problems (lack of a national blockchain platform); legal issues (lack of legal force of digital diplomas); organizational problems (lack of a centralized management structure that coordinates the “educational” blockchain as a single digital information space).

An example was also realized, showing the hardware and technological capabilities of the implementation of the task under consideration using the currently open (freely available) platforms. To implement the proposed test case, the Ethereum blockchain network was used, in particular, its RinkeBy test network.

The project implementation consisted of the following stages: creating a digital diploma file and placing it in the open file-sharing network in order to obtain the corresponding document hash; obtaining blockchain address (an electronic wallet was created using the MetaMask browser plugin, which allows for the transfer of data on a digital diploma to the blockchain); preparing data to be sent to the blockchain, where the data was a hexadecimal code, containing brief information about a digital diploma, including its hash; transferring data to the Ethereum blockchain (making a transaction); verification of transaction results in Etherscan.

Conclusion. The blockchain technology provides great opportunities in improving the concept of e-learning, taking into account the current requirements of the digital economy. This technology can conceptually change the data archiving system, increase the reliability of information protection against falsification, and significantly speed up the execution of requests for information and data processing. The problems that arise can be successfully resolved, as long as that the blockchain becomes one of the principles of the unified information educational space.

At the same time, the blockchain gives the following new opportunities: transparency and verifiability of the system of certification of graduates of educational institutions; the possibility of liquidation of intermediary organizations that implement a variety of support monitoring and certifying functions, associated with the “paper” requests for confirmation of diplomas; the overall reduction in paper workflow, the transfer of the classic “paper” business-processes into the information space, and as a result of all this – the practical implementation and example of the realization of the concept of digitalization of the knowledge economy.

The aim of the study is to develop the concept of the use of business games in the master’s program in the direction of “Information security” from the perspective of practical training methods and means of protection of information space of enterprises and organizations, as well as other economic subjects.

Materials and methods. The basis for the development of the concept of the use of business games in the education of masters in the direction of “Information security” are the Federal state educational standard and professional standard “Specialist in the protection of information in automated systems.” The concept of the business game defines the requirements for the specification of the rules of interaction of participants (actors) of the information and educational space in accordance with their role features, taking into account the implementation at the organizational level of the EIF (European Interoperability Framework).

Results. The article presents the concept of using business games in preparing masters for the program “Protecting the Information Space of Economic Actors”, substantiates the need to use business games for specific disciplines of the program, proposes an approach to implementing business games in the educational process based on the interaction of key actors in the information and educational space built on the basis of virtualization technologies.

Conclusion. The use of business games in the educational process of masters in the program “Protection of the information space of economic activity” contributes to the formation of the necessary professional competencies, taking into account the features of the components of the information space of economic activity: information resources, means of information interaction and information infrastructure.

The aim of research is to describe the foreign experience of open educational resources implementation in higher education on the example of Canada. The concept of open education in this country requires federal and regional support from the government. Currently, there is a number of initiatives, aimed at maximizing the development of open educational resources. An increasing number of open educational resource initiatives in Canadian universities offer free courses to both Canadians and international students. National open education initiatives include the following projects: “Open Data”, the federal government “pilot” project; support of Canadian Council of Ministers of Education within 2012 Paris Open Educational Resources Declaration; and the Creative Society of Canada. British Columbia and Alberta support open educational resources as a part of the most important open education initiatives at the regional level. However, a number of problems prevent the full development of the open education system.

Materials and methods of research include discourse-analysis of domestic and foreign scientific sources, devoted to the problems of open education. The methodological basis is the study of the legal framework of open education, a retrospective analysis of the open education development process in Canadian universities and the analysis of existing open educational projects.

The results of the study show that the need to implement the policy of open education imposes new requirements to the process of determining the level of educational programs development and the formation of a unified system of formal credits.

Conclusion. The Canadian examination of open educational resources regulates all sectors of education and training in the country. This examination is a review of the results of open education principles implementation at the national and regional levels. The article discusses the features of both regional and foreign projects functioning. The advantages of open educational policy for different segments of the population are described.