Tomsk State University

What it is

TSU MOOCs are the massive open online courses of Tomsk State University, produced by the university's Institute of Distance Education in Tomsk, Russia. The program began in 2014 with its first MOOC, Sketches of Siberia. A town of Tomsk, a course in Russian as a foreign language built around the city's history and cultural heritage. The institute's MOOC page says the portfolio now holds more than 100 MOOCs, published on the Stepik platform, with plans to place courses on Skillbox as well, and that the courses support Russian and English. It gives the average rating of TSU courses as 4.9 out of 5.

For a learner, the offer is simple: the page tells students the courses are completely free and taken at a distance, and all that is needed is to pick a topic and register on the platform. A team at the institute's Center for Pedagogical Design and Online Learning runs the whole production cycle for each MOOC, from development to support, promotion and research into online learning, and helps course authors turn their ideas into courses.

The catalog

The English MOOC page lists the subject areas: art, humanities, business and management, computer technologies, biological sciences, psychology, physics, mathematics and logic, engineering, and sociology. Courses are developed by university professors, school teachers, teachers of additional education, practitioners and business coaches. Titles in the portfolio include:

• The Changing Arctic, on how Arctic landscapes formed and how they are changing;
• Life in Soil, on biological processes in the soil and the role of living organisms in forming bedrock;
• Biological Diversity (Theories, Measures and Data sampling techniques) and Ecology: from cells to Gaia;
• Introduction to Parallel Programming with OpenMP and MPI;
• Innovations in Industry: Mechatronics and Robotics, and 3D printing for all and everyone;
• My friend is a robot, on the sociocultural side of social robotics;
• an introduction to probability theory, and Amazing World of Geography;
• psychology courses on psychodiagnostics and assessment, on occupational psychology and ergonomics, and on creativity (Genius. Talent. Golden Mediocrity);
• Health and healthcare in transition: dilemmas of governance, and History of Survival Principles;
• a reading course on Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita;
• Russian courses for foreigners, including Sketches of Siberia and Russian as an instrument of successful communication.

The Russian page names five TSU MOOCs that won awards at the annual international EdCrunch Award: courses on Russian as a tool for successful communication, parallel programming with OpenMP and MPI, etiquette for every occasion, open educational resources for teachers, and critical thinking.

How a course works

The English page sets out the format. Video lectures run 4 to 12 minutes. Learners are checked in several ways: short free answers, tasks that involve deriving formulas or writing programs, and midterm and final tests with deadlines. Peer review assignments have learners review and grade each other's work, such as essays, art or design projects. The page promises free communication between the instructor and learners, and a Course Certificate once a learner has passed all the required assignments. It describes the whole offer as free and affordable education for everyone with Internet access.

MOOCs inside TSU programs

TSU builds some of its MOOCs into its own bachelor's and master's programs; the Russian page gives History and Technologies of Survival (life safety) and Leadership and Team Building as examples. A course can be built in partly, or fully, in place of a regular discipline. In the second case the course is credited if the student finishes with a verified certificate obtained through proctoring.

The rules sit in the university's Regulations on open online courses credit transfer at TSU, which the English page says cover the procedure and conditions for transfer, the requirements that online results must meet, and how the workload is defined in credits, credit units or academic hours.

Proctoring

The proctoring system is how those certificates are verified. A proctor, acting as an administrator, watches the exam through the learner's webcam, which confirms the learner's identity, rules out cheat sheets and helps the teacher assess knowledge objectively. TSU has used synchronous proctoring since 2017, and its use became necessary and much wider in 2020. The page calls a proctored exam the only alternative to an in-person exam that keeps the procedure transparent and its quality intact.

Russian for foreigners: the "In Russian" platform

In April 2025 TSU launched an online platform for learning Russian, main.narusskom.online ("In Russian"), as a joint initiative of the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the university. It is meant for foreign citizens preparing to come to Russia: they can master basic Russian, prepare for exams and learn how to adapt to life there, starting from their home country. The interface is in Russian, English, Tajik and Uzbek.

The platform has three blocks. The first covers socio-cultural adaptation, with interactive material on opening a bank account, calling an ambulance or dealing with documents, plus Russian cultural traditions and laws. The second is Russian language training in modules built on real-life situations. The third is an adaptive simulator. A placement test sets each user's starting point: according to project manager Daria Maslova, someone who does not know the Russian alphabet starts with the basics, while someone who can read Russian is sent to dialogues and grammar. Mikhail Shepel, director of the Institute of Distance Education, says the team plans to translate the platform into 11 languages and to use AI to assess the speaking skills of foreign citizens. Staff of the Faculty of Philology, the Center for Pre-University Training and the Center for Testing Russian as a Foreign Language worked on it.

The same news item adds context: in 2024 the Ministry made TSU one of 14 universities in the country authorized to run the exam in Russian as a foreign language, Russian history and the basics of Russian law that foreign citizens take for a work permit (patent), temporary residence permit or residence permit. TSU runs that exam in electronic format.

Support

Technical support for teachers and students runs through a hotline at the Institute of Distance Education, and the institute takes general questions by e-mail at office@ido.tsu.ru.

Who it suits

TSU MOOCs suit learners of Russian as a foreign language, who get a long-running set of courses plus the adaptive "In Russian" platform with its everyday adaptation material. They also suit students and adults who want free, short-format university courses in science and technical subjects such as Arctic science, soil biology, ecology, parallel programming and robotics, or in psychology and literature. TSU's own students gain most, since a proctored certificate can replace a discipline in their program.

They suit less well learners who want live classes, since the format is video lectures, assignments and peer review, and learners at other universities who hope for credit, since the credit rules described here are TSU's own.