Integration of foreign learning platforms into the national education system: sociological expertise of the situation

the article deals with an expertise of the integration of learning platforms, including foreign ones, into the national education system. The work considers information obtained in the course of the qualitative analysis of the problem. The analysis was made within the frame of the sociological part of the fundamental research project «Evaluation of the risks related to the integration of foreign learning platforms, including foreign ones, into the Russian education system». The undertaken research handles empirical data and proves to be a pioneer in the study of this matter. It was aimed at studying opinions of the expert community – a target group of experts in methodology, techniques and organization of online education and managerial staff working at various levels of the national education system and conducted through a deep semi-structured interviews. Presentation of the substance of the experts’ judgments is preceded by summarizing their opinions on topicality of the research subject matter. The work considers a range of foreign devel-opments which implement an online education technology. These developments are being actually used and are supposed to be the most promising ones in the Russian education. The paper notes that the integration of foreign learning platforms into Russian practice may contribute to the optimum solution of current and emerging problems in education but at the same time carries certain risks. The study reveals a complex of main tasks which are meant to be solved and which are being effec-tively solved by means of foreign learning platforms. The article mainly contains identifying a range of risks emerging in the course of integration of foreign learning platforms into teaching and studying activities, their evaluation and forecasting through a qualified expertise. Furthermore, risks categorization is based not only on theoretical pre-liminary studies in this sphere but the expert panel opinions as well. The categorical range of risks obtained includes content, social, economic, political, psychological, pedagogical, and managerial risks. Within the frame of the categories mentioned above the study elicits and specifies particular threats which are emerging or becoming a possibility under the integration of foreign learning plat-forms into teaching and studying activities. The concluding part of the article introduces constructive suggestions of the expert commu-nity to minimize threats when integrate foreign learning platforms into the Russian education system.