Abstract:

The UNESCO experts as well as governments of many western countries confirm that e-learning as an educational technology becomes a priority trend in educational reforms in the USA, UK, Canada, Germany, France and many other countries nowadays. Likeminded the European Culture Commission’s "Lifelong Learning Programme 2007-2013” has been described as the new EU umbrella for education and training programs. In recent years the Russian system of the e-learning has developed as well and usually faced different challenges. Indeed Russia defined e-learning on the state level already in 1995. Later on legal issues were defined in federal acts (laws) such as "About education”, "About Higher and Post-Graduate Vocational Education” and in the order of the Russian Ministry of Education №4452 "About adoption of the methodology of e-learning technologies in higher, secondary and vocational educational institutions in Russian Federation”.

Likewise in the Russian State Vocational Pedagogical University (RSVPU, Yekaterinburg) e-learning was started 2004. Since that moment the number of students enrolled in e-learning has increased almost 20 times. To allow a more valid international comparison this research has been conducted as part of the international Erasmus Mundus Consortium "Multidisciplinary capacity-building for an improved economic, political and university co-operation between the European Union and the Russian Federation“. In the sense of a comparative analysis students of vocational educational in Russia and in Germany had been surveyed.

Specific basis has been the learning management system OPAL, the Saxon adaption of the Swiss based Open Source System OLAT. Overall comprehensive experience in Saxony in creating and implementing e-learning courses has led to one of most intensely used installations throughout Germany with more than 90.000 students. In order to identify readiness of students for e-learning, as well as comparing their different perceptions about advantages and disadvantages of e-learning, authors surveyed groups of vocational education students enrolled at the TU Dresden (Dresden, Germany) and RSVPU (Yekaterinburg, Russia) using the platform OPAL, altogether 75 students (47 from Germany and 28 from Russia).
Overall the questionnaire showed that there is an essential need for students in using e-learning, as well as to ensure that the attitude of students toward e-learning is positive enough.

Keywords:

Vocational education, e-learning, comparative analyses, learning management system OPAL.