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Introduction
The digitalization of all spheres of life in modern society presents new requirements for the modernization of the higher education system. The development of new social networking technologies actualizes the problem of their use for educational purposes, including the Russian market of educational services. An analysis is required of the impact of new information social network technologies on collective creativity strategies, on the processing, structuring and storage of information, on new methods and approaches in the higher education system.
Materials and methods
The pilot projects stood as the research materials, which based on strategies for using new social networking technologies, such as crowdsourcing, blockchain, big date, and collective intelligence and artificial intelligence technologies. To consider the specifics of the work of new network technologies in higher education, we used a systematic approach, hermeneutic methodology, and axiological method.
New strategies for the formation of professional education based on new social networking technologies are present in the Russian system of higher education as individual projects. There is a need for their wider use, taking into account the development trends of a network society.
Results and discussion
The development of the higher education system in Russia within the framework of building the information society is mostly determined by the ability to adapt innovations in the field of information technologies to their needs. The development of new network technologies creates fundamentally new opportunities for increasing the efficiency of mastering educational programs and, at the same time, also creates new risks due to problems of digital inequality, the costs of information wars (Hulme & Goodchild, 2017).
At the beginning of the XXI century, scientists focused, on the one hand, on the qualitative characteristics of information, which led to the emergence of the concept of knowledge societies. On the other hand, they examined the threats posed by the growing variety of information interactions, which led to the emergence of the term “risk society”. Today, researchers are paying more attention to analyzing the global network nature of the information society.
The development of networks of various levels and the interaction between them in the context of an avalanche-like increase in information flows determined the demand for new technologies based on collective strategies for the development, processing, structuring and storage of existing and created knowledge. Given the ongoing social and technological changes in the information society and the development of social networking technologies such as blockchain, crowdsourcing and collective intelligence, it is necessary to search for new strategies in vocational education in Russia. Moreover, there is need in the development of approaches to the management of education in the university cluster that meet the requirements of modern social reality.
The purpose of the study is a comprehensive analysis of the impact of modern social network technologies (such as blockchain, crowdsourcing, and collective intelligence), based on collective strategies for the development, processing, structuring and storage of existing and generated knowledge. Also based on the creation of new vocational education strategies, approaches to managing education in a university cluster, aimed at the formation of professional and personal qualities of the student.
The purpose of the study determines the main tasks of the work such as:
to reveal the specifics of modern technologies of social networks (crowdsourcing, blockchain, big date, collective intelligence technologies, artificial intelligence); 2) to analyze the impact of social networking technologies on the formation of professional and personal qualities of a student; 3) to identify new educational strategies and approaches to educational management in the university cluster of Russia, aimed at the formation of professional and personal qualities of a student and compliance with current trends in the information development of society. The theoretical and practical significance of the study includes a synthesis of trends related to the needs of modern education. This could be helpful in the development of specific methods and educational programs for the training of highly qualified professionals.
At present, it seems very relevant to conduct a methodological analysis of social networking technologies in the context of changing vocational training. It is necessary to develop a strategy for the modernization of the existing education system and determine its basic principles and directions. In recent years, scientists have been actively discussing the main trends and prospects of the transition of the information society from the stage of the post-industrial society; to the knowledge society, risk society (Beck, 2008; Bechmann, 2010; Rosa et al., 2015; Skorodumova et al., 2019); And Finally, The Network Society (Castells, 2016, 2018; Giddens, 2018).
According to Castells (2016), informatization and globalization contribute to the formation of a network society. The latter could be understood as a dynamic, self-expanding form of organization of human activity. Due to its properties, information easily penetrates any barriers and boundaries. Knowledge and information circulate in networks representing structures in which relations between people are carried out not only based on economic interests, but also in accordance with accepted norms and rules. The network structure transforms all spheres of social and economic life, which increases the popularity of corporate networks, e-commerce and mobile telephony. The society of network structures is a new public order (organic self-organization), which in the long-term prospective will allow a qualitative change in people's lives.
The modernization of society, its economic, political and social structures requires the search and implementation of new social practices. Social engineering is one of them, and it opens up new possibilities for solving transformation problems. Social technology is an essential mechanism of social engineering. Despite the fact that scientific publications give a different interpretation of this concept, modern researchers in the analysis of social processes, trying to solve social problems and to design and implement communicative influences, are using it. We are talking about technologies such as blockchain (Tapscott & Tapscott, 2016), crowdsourcing (Botto, 2017), and collective intelligence (Gloor, 2017); Researchers consider these technologies both in terms of the specifics of their application and analysis of the social and philosophical consequences of their use. Today, a professional must be able to apply social technology to solve social problems. At present, society needs fundamental changes in the system of vocational education: while professionals who received education in the twentieth century, as a rule, had enough knowledge for the long-term implementation of work in the specialty. In the modern world (Evreeva, 2018), the dynamic nature of the information society requires special qualities associated with constant retraining and a kind of reprogramming of a person in accordance with the changing needs of a rapidly growing business environment. Baumann et al. (2014), considers modern strategies in the field of education and indicate that education should meet the requirements of the modern dynamic world, market economy and information culture.
A significant restructuring of the entire traditional (classical) education system (Evreeva, 2018) is happening mainly because the education is no longer considered a privilege of a certain social group or an attribute of a certain age group. People learn throughout their lives. A new educational strategy is emerging and considers lifelong learning. This corresponds to a new approach to education - to learn how to learn. Having considered the results of empirical and theoretical studies conducted by leading scientists, the authors concluded there are some problems that require further development and research. These include determining the specifics of modern technologies of social networks (blockchain, crowdsourcing and collective intelligence), the personal qualities of a professional, justifying the need for new educational strategies and ways to organize training in a university cluster.
The information society as a global network structure is formed at the junction and interaction of networks, including professional ones. Castells defines a network society as a society whose social structure is built around networks that are activated using digitized information and communication technologies based on microelectronics. The network affects a person, subordinating its logic, turning interaction with it into a lifestyle. Unlike industrial and early forms of post-industrial societies, where individual initiative dominates, a modern network society requires the ability to collaborate collectively, which is determined by the needs of the network as a whole. Based on the principle of decentralization, network structures are extremely unstable, and their development has a certain non-linear character.
Research innovations are actively being introduced, taking into account the fact that the proposed ideas and concepts attract other members of the community, and this leads to a kind of competition between them. When the situation becomes unstable, groups may break up. This leads to a state of chaos, with possible fluctuations that can lead the system to a bifurcation point. The latter can reveal fundamentally new levels of problem solving. The non-linear dynamics of the network does not allow accurate forecasts. Competition between networks for survival, by analogy with natural selection, gives an advantage to networks that are able to quickly provide the necessary information or generate new information for a specific task. This poses the problem of overcoming network redundancy. On the one hand, it is necessary to filter out users who generate noise, inefficient information, and on the other hand, to attract active members who are able to create new ideas and innovations.
The ability to attract the most creative professionals to the network is largely based on their trust in the network, on the belief that their ideas will not be used by someone else. Such an approach requires the search for new forms of manifestation, storage and translation of ideas. The success of network interactions largely depends on the degree of trust of network users in it. Trust is an essential need of the information society. A representative example of this is the on-demand deployment of IBM e-business technologies, which offer significant economic benefits. The main idea of an on-demand e-business strategy is the ability to lease information services and technologies. The hosting center can control financial flows and financial statements only if there is confidence in the integrity and transparency of its intentions.
In the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the need to use such technologies for the education system have been clearly manifested. The implementation of the educational process using the Internet, revealed the lack of available information resources, especially for conducting streaming lectures, distributed conferences, and practices in a virtual environment. The adapted use of business technology on demand in the education system could significantly solve this problem. The need to choose reliable platforms for realizing the goals of effective education in the digital age is one of the most pressing problems of the modern system of higher education (Bowen, 2018).
Another popular technology for social networks is blockchain. The initial equality of participating authors, who are offered free identification, abstraction from their social status, openness and transparency, accessibility and protection of information from distortion create the most favorable conditions for cooperation and interaction on the principles of honesty and common interest. Blockchain plays a big role in the development of “idea factories”, which focus the creative ideas of schoolchildren and students. It provides technical protection of information from changes and makes it accessible to the entire network community. Appearing as a technology for using cryptocurrencies (Tapscott & Tapscott, 2016), the blockchain quickly became popular. The blockchain provides equal access to information when the results of transactions related to debiting or crediting bitcoins to an account are accessible to everyone on the network using this technology, which makes the procedures completely transparent and inaccessible to scammers. The strategic potential of its practical implementation have been gradually recognized in other areas. Storage of all transactions and their availability for business analysis allows us to evaluate the reliability of the company (Boroomand et al., 2016). Databases about the services provided by lawyers, doctors and consultants, and their results allow us to analyze professional competence without reading reviews. Blockchain provides new opportunities for assessing the real significance of scientific innovations, their marketing costs, as well as for assessing the potential effect of their implementation by analyzing the subsequent work of companies buying these innovations. In the education system, one of the pressing problems is the problem of ensuring intellectual property in the latest educational programs and resources. This is especially true of open education. Modern intellectual property systems are not able to protect copyrights, which leads to the fact that original copyrighted methods, educational programs containing significant innovative potential are closed and treated as a trade secret. The introduction of blockchain technologies would stimulate the discovery of innovative educational materials, since it would clearly fix their reuse and receive rewards for it (Kirillova et al., 2018). Blockchain plays a significant role in the identification of students. This is especially important in the context of certification and obtaining documents about education remotely. The identification procedure when using blockchain technologies is greatly simplified; less involvement of forces and technical resources is required, which creates an opportunity for wider use of distance learning technologies (Kirillova et al., 2018).
Blockchain technology laid the foundation for the implementation of the principle of trust. Free identification, which implies the initial equality of the parties entering the system without manifesting differences in their status, accessibility and transparency of information, its protection from distortion and changes, publicity, creates a favorable environment for interaction based on collective interests, honesty and openness.
Networking technology can accumulate the creative potential of different people and stimulate the emergence of original and innovative ideas. Crowdsourcing as a technology of a social network creates the conditions for solving non-standard tasks, as a rule, on the basis of good will, covering a huge number of people thanks to the Internet without taking into account their various physiological and social characteristics. One of the pilot projects that unleashed the potential of collaborative research was the SETI @ home (SETI @ home) project, when in 1999 volunteers provided their computers to process signals collected by NASA. The signals were decrypted during the search for extraterrestrial civilizations. Since then, the range of resolved problems has expanded (Howe, 2012). Crowdsourcing technologies are more widely used in design solutions, joint development of a brand (Citycelebrity), product or content, search for missing people, public opinion polls on the most significant issues, voting, search for innovative approaches to solving problems, etc. Crowdsourcing has a significant impact in areas such as economics, politics, and social life (Howe, 2012). No less productive is the use of crowdsourcing in the higher education system. The introduction of design teaching methods requires the use of new forms of interactive interaction between the teacher and students (Shutaleva et al., 2019), creating a competitive environment, which can be effectively implemented using crowdsourcing. Using the project approach to training requires the involvement of significant amounts of information, the development of methods for assessing their relevance and selection of material. The creation of competing mini-groups and the use of crowdsourcing technologies to attract interested parties to the project can increase the efficiency of the process of both collecting material and processing it and putting forward innovative ideas.
An avalanche-like increase of the amount information in networks leads to a situation where even in a highly specialized field it is impossible to analyze all significant sources, which requires the creation of advanced expert systems based on collective intelligence technology (Brockman, 2016). The specificity of this technology implies that professionals unite in a global network structure in accordance with the synergetic principles of self-organization for solving specific problems and making collective decisions. Such networks accumulate the generated volume of knowledge and innovative ideas that have been processed by intelligent information systems, as well as by the professionals involved in these networks. The number determines competition between networks and quality of problems solved, which leads to a situation where the most successful professionals are combined into one structure. In such a network, professionals are being ranked by the system itself, depending on their contribution to this network community. Status growth does not depend on external regalia, but on their activity in the network and the effectiveness of problem solving. To expand their capabilities, such networks will seek to merge with each other, so that ultimately all available knowledge and their carriers will be combined into a single system called collective intelligence.
Competition, individualistic self-promotion of a professional or team is replaced by an awareness of the importance of collective activity as the key to success in the information age (Crawley et al., 2014).
In a higher education system, where the development of research skills and a creative approach is one of the most urgent tasks, the development of work skills in collective intelligence systems is strategically important. The first steps in this direction have already been taken in the domestic education system (Kostenko, 2016).
It can be assumed that such networks will tend to unite into one system, called the collective mind (Gloor, 2017). According to Brockman (2016), bringing people into network communities in the future should increase the level of collective intelligence.
The practice of creating networks, accumulating the creativity of students, is becoming very relevant in modern conditions. Society needs radical changes in education. The dynamic nature of the information society requires the special qualities of a professional associated with constant retraining and a kind of reprogramming in accordance with the changing needs of an intensively developing business environment. Hence the urgency of forming the ability of teamwork skills, determining one's own capabilities, developing an algorithm for embedding in creative teams. These skills must be developed starting from the first course of study at a university. The first steps in the Russian system of higher education have already been taken (Kostenko, 2016).
The need for a fundamental transformation of vocational education in the context of intensive digitalization of society is becoming apparent. In the past, the goal of education was to gain knowledge represented by a complex of verified, reliable and systematized information, perceived as scientific truth within the framework of the corresponding paradigm. However, in a network society, the emphasis is on the possibility of using this or that information to solve a goal within a specific project.
Project-based learning contributes to the acquisition of knowledge, reveals the close connection between theory and practice, and develops the creative potential of students and their communication skills. This approach is aimed not only at vocational training (specialization), but also at the socialization of students, their understanding of the social and humanistic meaning of their future work.
Conclusions
Using the capabilities of new social network technologies, such as crowdsourcing, blockchain, big date, collective intelligence technologies, and also systems based on artificial intelligence, meets the modern needs of a higher professional education system in the context of intensive digitalization and the development of a network society. At the same time, in Russian higher education institutions there are only a few pilot projects using these technologies. Awareness of their heuristic potential, based on collective forms of students' creative activity, creation of reliable guarantees for the protection of intellectual property of students and teachers, project modeling of educational and research activities in universities, involvement of a wide range of interested parties in solving problems is necessary.
