Purpose of the study. The aim is to create a technique targeted at the development of simulation skills in higher education environment, where students are competent in applying information technologies in economics. The relevance of the research lies in the fact that the existing methodological developments often focus on a specific software tool or methodology that cannot respond to all economic problems. A specialist in simulation modeling should possess integrative interdisciplinary knowledge from related scientific fields, for example, probability theory and mathematical statistics, higher mathematics, be familiar with other methods of solving economic problems: linear, nonlinear, dynamic programming, optimization; show proficiency in structural and functional analysis; be able to explore complex processes and systems comprehensively.

Materials and methods. The following pedagogical approaches and teaching methods were implemented in this research:
● a systematic approach to solving complex problems based on the modelling economic objects as systems operating in a certain environment,
● activity approach to develop students’ professional competences in the process of creation, debugging and optimization of computer
models of economic systems;
● problem teaching method in the framework of research and analysis of educational problems of the subject area;
● implemented interactive teaching methods;
● multimedia methods in the content of teaching materials of the discipline, including electronic manuals, educational videos, as well as multimedia presentations.
The research also utilized information technologies, in which computers, communication equipment and software environments are:
● means to provide educational material to students for the transfer of knowledge;
● tools for designing, developing and conducting simulation experiments. In addition, we used the following special professional technologies, methods and tools in the process of teaching students:
● structural and functional modeling methodology;
● discrete-event approach to simulation methodology;
● special software for development and research of simulation models of economic processes and systems: Arena 15.0, AnyLogic 8.3.2.

According to the requirements of the new educational standards, the student must master a sufficiently large amount of general cultural, professional and specialized competencies included in the curriculum. The application of the proposed approaches and methods allows to provide effective development of skills of simulation modeling of educational programs for bachelors of «Applied Informatics» and «Business Informatics».

Results. The study created a method of teaching students the skills of simulation modeling. The research also established the model of formation of readiness of the IT specialist to the development of simulation models of economic processes and systems in higher school. We also identified important methodological conditions for the formation of professional competencies of students in the field of modeling, such as:
● application of a systematic approach to the analysis of domain problems, as well as for the synthesis of mathematical simulation models of business processes and economic systems;
● practical orientation of the content of training (selection and research in the educational process of the most characteristic, typical problems of the economy);
● integration of interdisciplinary knowledge, methods and approaches to solve complex problems.

Conclusion. The method can equip students with skills of simulation modeling with various areas of practical application. First, this technique can be used by university students who are engaged in pursuing practical skills and basic system knowledge in the field of simulation. Secondly, teachers can use it, conducting courses: “Computer modeling”, “Mathematical and simulation modeling”, “Modeling of processes and systems” in the educational process of the University to improve the professional competence of students training simulation modeling. Third, the outcomes may be of interest to managers of educational programs in the areas of: “Applied Informatics”, “Business Informatics”, etc. to improve the structure and sequence of disciplines of competence-oriented curricula. Finally, the application of the proposed methodology in the educational process of the University will enhance professional expertise of young specialists and undoubtedly address the needs of potential employers.

Purpose of the research. The development of electronic technologies in modern socio-economic environment and the urgent need for their integration into higher education require a different type of teachers’ professional thinking based on their sustainable self-development. The paper provides a reflexive analysis of the implementation of electronic information-educational environment (EIEE) by the Yaroslavl branch of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics and offers an insight into interactive and management aspects of EIEE integration and use in the educational process.

Materials and methods. To achieve the goal, the EIEE structural and functional components were identified, stages, system requirements and technical features of EIEE implementation were determined along with the prospects for EIEE further integration and development within the university. Analysis, synthesis, comparison and generalization approaches were used as general scientific methods of this research.

Results. The paper gives an insight into the project of the Yaroslavl branch of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics on the use of EIEE as an imperative for high-level development of graduates’ common cultural, as well as general and specific professional competencies, to facilitate their competitiveness in the labour market. The urgency of innovations in the EIEE integration in universities is substantiated. The authors emphasize that the EIEE practical application requires achievement of a new level of communication skills, interaction of all participants in the educational process, based on a broader vision of the educational environment and a new level of teachers’ professional thinking, presupposing both creativity and management of their own mental processes associated with metacognition.

Conclusion. As a result, the authors make conclusions on the implementation of various aspects of the university EIEE, such as administrative, managerial and interactive ones. According to the study, a wide application of EIEE can become a priority tool in solving problems of the effectiveness, which is proved by the evidence and examples from the educational experience given in the article.

The purpose of the research is to analyze pedagogical problems stemming from the emergence of a new “digital” generation in Russian educational organizations of various levels (secondary schools, universities), and search for possible solutions to these problems primarily aimed at reducing the negative impact of digital devices in students’ activities.

Materials and research methods are based on a number of foreign publications in the field of pedagogy, psychology, neurophysiology, conducted in the USA, Great Britain, Singapore and other countries since the 2000s, as well as studies of the “digital” generation of Russia in the mid-2010s. This research applied a specially developed technique that enabled conducting a relative assessment of the impact of digital devices on the activities of various students’ groups of an educational system (secondary schools - university) in one of the major Russian regions.

Results of the study conducted in 2018 in one university and several schools of various types in a region of the Russian Federation reveals that the ninth grade lyceum students show a noticeably lower degree of the effect of digital devices on their daily activities compared to the first-year students of the same university. A similar indicator of a ninth-grade students’ group of a comprehensive secondary school, on the contrary, is significantly higher when compared to that of the first-year university students. The author substantiates two main reasons that lead to this result: 1) a more optimal workload of learning and cognitive activity of lyceum students, which, as a result, significantly reduces their free time, that could be spent on entertainment/ communication; 2) better control from the parents of lyceum students.

Conclusion. The article describes two pedagogical models that allow, according to the author, to reduce the negative impact of digital devices on the younger generation. The first model (demonstrated at the Singapore Institute of Education), aimed at encouraging students to use gadgets for educational purposes, suggests a number of pedagogical conditions, both artificial (organizational and technological) and natural (age restrictions). The second model, on the one hand, does not impose strict age restrictions, but, at the same time, requires an educational organization to implement the training system that would effectively motivate students to learning and cognitive activity (with or without gadgets) on school days.

The purpose of the research is to develop a concept for improving the model of additional education for solving the tasks set by the Russian government in the Digital Economy of the Russian Federation Program. Taking into account the high rates of development of digital technologies and methods of their use, the transformation of the model of additional education becomes a paramount task and requires a systematic approach to its solution. Now, the issues of creating organizational structures and their financing for solving the tasks set in the Program often overshadow aspects related to the methodology and content of additional professional education. However, the issues of organizing ways to acquire new knowledge and skills, the content of additional education programs, personalization, and technology for delivering knowledge to students become most relevant. Therefore, it is important to create a competitive environment for additional education that meets the needs of the student.

Materials and research methods contain analysis of domestic and foreign literature on digitalization of education and knowledge management. The methodological basis of the research is the methods and technologies of the theory of knowledge management and system analysis.

The research results show that the dynamics of development of economic processes are so fast that they constantly require new knowledge and skills from employees, and often a shift in work. New competencies are required, which are now acquired mainly directly during work and independently. All this makes it necessary to improve the approaches to the implementation of additional education. The concept of transformation of the model of additional education proposed in the article contains the following basic requirements for the implementation of programs: the need for quality basic education as the foundation for the construction of various additional programs; availability of a wider range of additional education programs, not only after graduating, but also during and after school; the expansion of training programs offered through online platforms; development of network forms and peerto-peer training; the need for close cooperation with professional communities, building an additional education system to meet the requirements and needs of the business.

Conclusion. The concept of transformation of the model of additional education proposed in the article is based on the use of modern information and communication technologies and the creation of an educational environment that assumes the active interaction of all participants in the educational process (including employers). The transformation of the educational environment involves the solution of practical tasks for the rapid development and updating of the relevant curricula; automatic construction of courses on the basis of the repository of educational objects under the competence, which are in demand and formed by the business environment; certification of various levels, confirming the acquisition of knowledge in a particular area, not only in accordance with the approved professional standards, but also in the field of continuing professional education; monitoring the demand for programs based on adaptive testing.

The paper studies application of social networks as a component of the educational information environment of an educational institution in the educational process. The aim of the research is to justify the need to train specialists in the field of information security to provide protection and safe use of social networks in the educational process. To ensure information security of social networks applied in educational processes, it is proposed to incorporate training programs for information security specialists to build their competencies of information security of social networks, including gaining advanced skills to combat new challenging cyber threats, as well as to employ information security specialists with a high level of expertise in cyber security of social networks, determine their work functions in the elaboration of organizational and technical measures to protect users of social networks. In the course of the research, publications on incorporating social networks into the educational process as a didactic tool were analyzed. In particular, on the basis of the conducted analysis of the cited publications and taking into account the authors’ own experience, the properties of social networks that are most promising for their use as a learning platform were determined. However, along with the above positive aspects and advantages, social networks can also be considered as indirect and even direct sources of cyber threats targeted at both the entire educational process and individual users’ accounts. Theoretical and empirical pedagogical methods were used to accomplish the objectives. This facilitated efficient systematization of the collected data for its successful study and identification of the most typical features of the social networks when applied in the educational process and extension of those with specific properties were identified. The paper also describes threats that may arise when using such networks in an educational organization, suggests measures to mitigate risks and discusses functions of information security specialists in ensuring security of social networks used in the educational process. Also, it was established that for the effective and safe use of social networks in the educational process, the organizer of this activity requires specific professional competence in the field of information security, which can be insufficient among the overwhelming majority of lecturers of both general and vocational education. Moreover, a conclusion was drawn about the need to train specialists in the information security of social networks, so they can gain the required professional competences and execute their specific occupations. Proposals were made on the possible development of these competences in the course of studying certain disciplines at the level of the secondary vocational education. Integration of the described approach into the educational process of training information security specialists in institutions of secondary vocational education, aimed at providing maintenance of social networks, will allow meeting the demand for such specialists and, thereby, increasing their competitiveness in the market of educational services.

Purpose of the research. The aim of the study is to increase the effectiveness of information security and to enhance accuracy and promptness of the classification of security events, security incidents, and threats in information security systems. To respond to this challenge, neural network technologies were suggested as a classification tool for information security systems. These technologies allow accommodating incomplete, inaccurate and unidentified raw data, as well as utilizing previously accumulated information on security issues. To address the problem more effectively, collective methods based on collective neural ensembles aligned with an advanced complex approach were implemented.

Materials and methods: When solving complex classification problems, often none of the classification algorithms provides the required accuracy. In such cases, it seems reasonable to build compositions of algorithms, mutually compensating errors of individual algorithms. The study also gives an insight into the application of neural network ensemble to address security issues in the corporate information system and provides a brief review of existing approaches to the construction of neural network ensembles and methods to shape problem solving with neural networks classifiers. An advanced integrated approach is proposed to tackle problems of security event classification based on neural network ensembles (neural network committees). The approach is based on a three-step procedure. The stages of the procedure implementation are described. It is shown that the use of this approach facilitates the efficiency of solving the problem.

Results: An advanced integrated approach to addressing security event classification based on neural network ensembles (neural network committees) is proposed. This approach applies adaptive reduction of neural network ensemble (selection of the best classifiers is based on the assessment of the compliance degree of the competence area of the private neural network classifier and convergence of the results of private classifiers), as well as the selection and rationale of the voting method (composition or aggregation of outputs of private classifiers). The results of numerical experiments support the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Conclusion: Collectively used artificial neural networks in the form of neural network ensembles (committees of neural networks) will provide more accurate and reliable results of security event classification in the corporate information network. Moreover, an advanced integrated approach to the construction of a neural network ensemble is proposed to facilitate effectiveness of the classification process. The approach is based on the application of the adaptive reduction procedure for the results of private classifiers and the procedure for selecting the method of aggregation of the results of private classifiers. These outcomes will enable advancement of the system control over information security incidents. Finally, the paper defines tendencies and directions of the development of collective solution methods applying neural network ensembles (committees of neural networks).

The purpose of the study is to develop guidelines for improving the teaching process of students from the People’s Republic of China in Russian technical universities, taking into account the specific aspects of higher education in China and methodology of teaching special disciplines to foreign students in Russia. The urgency of the research is caused by the global trends in the development of higher education: globalization, liberalization and internationalization, the growth of cooperation between the two countries in the field of science and technology, in particular space exploration, which as a result leads to the development of joint programs in the provision of education services. Most scientific articles on teaching foreign students are devoted to general issues of pedagogy and psychology, as well as to the problems of teaching Russian as a foreign language, while the aspects of teaching special technical disciplines to citizens of another country pose certain challenges.

Materials and methods of research. The research materials include printed works for which the appropriate methods of analysis of scientific texts are used:
● excerpts from the development programs of space industry and joint educational programs of Russia and China – aspect and diachronic method of analysis of priority areas of development of the higher school of China and promising areas of cooperation;
● the curricula of professional education in various areas and specialties of Bauman Moscow State Technical University – aspect analysis of the general provisions of engineering training programs;
● manuals on the “Basics of Rocket and Space Technology” (BRST) of Russia (USSR) and China – critical, comparative and conceptual analysis of the content features, methods and style of presentation of the material;
● BRST – aspect and phenomenological analysis of the structure and content of a special technical discipline;
● scientific works on pedagogy and psychology – aspect and system analysis of features of the education system, educational behavior and bilingual opportunities of students from China.

The paper applied the problem analysis method to tackle the task in the context of publications’ shortage on teaching special technical disciplines to foreigners. Also, the method of deconstruction, axiomatic and descriptive analysis of text textbooks and manuals on pedagogy and psychology is directly utilized to develop guidelines, proposed in the article.

Results. Upon the analysis, guidelines to improve the efficiency of the educational process for Chinese students were developed, using teaching based on the printed text in Russian and Chinese, transformation of educational material to another type, and inclusion of nationally oriented content in educational materials. Finally, we proposed original methods of express surveys to establish feedback with students and put forward a conceptual suggestion, that foreign students pursuing technical education should be given the opportunity and conditions for the implementation and development of cognitive abilities using their native language.

Conclusion. The developed pedagogical methods allow to adapt the educational material of special technical disciplines taking into account both mental and socio-cultural characteristics of the students from the People’s Republic of China studying in the universities of the Russian Federation.

Purpose of research. The aim of this work is research of algorithms for quantitative assessment of intellectual potential (rating) of academic and pedagogical staff in higher educational institutions, as well as the development of technology for the application of these algorithms in practice.

Materials and methods. According to the authors, the most appropriate method of assessing the diverse activities of the Faculty members is a technique based on the method of qualimetry – ranking objects in ascending or descending order based on the calculation of a certain set of features. This approach was embodied in the rules of rating of academic and pedagogical staff of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. Due to the fact that the indicators can change annually the possibility of dynamic adjustment of indicators was provided in the project implementation. An important factor affecting design decisions is the need to process a large number of indicators in a limited time. At the same time, the preparation of data (their input and control, coordination) should be engaged in a large number of people who are employees of different departments, geographically distributed, in different subordination. In addition, it was necessary to take into account the possibility of new requirements for output forms. As a result, the concept of an automated rating system of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics was based on the following design decisions: dynamic setting of indicators and algorithms of ranking, the dynamic configuration of the personal account of the rated academic and pedagogical staff, external configuring of control parameters, the possibility of creating extensible libraries of output forms, the use of Internet technologies.

Results. As a result of work the system of indicators of quantitative assessment, technology of their collecting and storage is prepared, and also the information system providing collecting, processing and display of the received results in an acceptable form on the basis of Internet technologies is realized. The technology of dynamic adjustment of the collected indicators, binding to the places of their formation, as well as setting the output forms has shown its effectiveness.

Conclusion. Experience in the implementation of the rating system in Plekhanov Russian University of Economics showed that the independent automated assessment of the activity efficiency of officers allows to improve the mechanism of planning and personnel management system, allows to create model of stimulation of the types of activity influencing increase of the place of University in the Russian and international ratings, and also creates conditions for positive dynamics of growth of level of qualification of academic and pedagogical staff. At the same time, rating enables employees to identify areas for development and improvement, influence their earnings and receive competitive remuneration for their work. Implementation of rating system in Plekhanov Russian University of Economics proved the flexibility of the proposed approach, reduction of labor costs for data processing, full transparency of calculations, and, as a consequence, reduction of questions from the rated academic and pedagogical staff. In addition, the directions of technological development of the system are identified.

Purpose of research. The article describes the mechanism of formation of electronic portfolio and evaluation of the student team at the University and considers the relevance of the use of such a database by employers. Based on the above-mentioned relevance, it is proposed to develop a personal account of the employer as a service over the interuniversity database of the electronic portfolio.

Materials and methods. Assessment of students in the personal account of the employer is based on the index method with a floating base on the basis of linear convolution with three-stage normalization. The article also discusses the implementation of this project with a description of technologies and approaches used in software development on the example of business process design based on structural analysis - a diagram of top-level data flows and a description of the project implementation based on service architecture and Single-Page approach is given.

Results. At this stage, methods have been developed and tested and a list of key indicators for evaluating students’ activities has been defined, a system for collecting, approving and evaluating student achievement data has been implemented. Based on these data it is possible to obtain a reliable formalized portfolio for students and graduates of the University. The employer’s personal account and data import services from external portfolio systems are at the final stage of development. The completion of this stage will provide employers with access to information about future employees, obtaining a list of the gifted students for the appointment of corporate scholarships, campaigning, attracting students’ attention to professional implementation, selection and appointment of topics of course and diploma projects and some other opportunities.

Conclusion. In conclusion, the article discusses the prospects for the development and implementation of this project: assessment of the activities of young employees, testing and questionnaires of students by employers, numerical assessment of the degree of compliance of graduates with the requirements of professional standards.