Topical Issues of Organizing Digital Department Activities in the Context of University Digital Transformation

Abstract

Purpose: The stages of becoming in a university of new trend “Digital Department” which allows also to formulate term “digitalization” anew. Methods: The birth of term “digitalization” in a university has been studied. The evolution of notions “automation”, “informatization”, “digitalization” which predetermine smooth transfer to new trend in universities — “digital department” and, hence, “digital university”, has been shown. Results: “Digital university” model has been formulated that consists of such important components as “infrastructure”, “programmatic platforms”, “informational systems”, “data corporative storage” and “digital services”. “Digital department” possibilities in a university have been demonstrated in the part of realization of “Digital technologies on railway transport” educational program and such notional trends as internet of things, big data, virtual and augmented reality systems, artificial intelligence, “digital twin”, distributed ledger systems (recent years major trends in digital economy sphere). Practical significance: “Digital department” possibilities from the point of uniform approach to widescale teaching digital competences to students of almost all IT specialties and training trends have been demonstrated. The experience of external control has been narrated — from making to teaching — by Science and Higher Education Ministry and Digital Development, Communication and Mass Communications Ministry of Russian Federation by means of Innopolis University. The article authors make an attempt to answer topical in this sphere questions: how modern digital services immediately influence training features in professional education? Which is management model of “digital university”? Which components it consists of?