Informational Environment of the Sphere of Education of Russia

New Information Technologies (NIT) is a major factor, which determines the quality of education in modern society. These technologies are actively used in educational processes, scientific research in the universities, management of educational enterprises and for the satisfaction of informational, social and cultural needs of all participants in the educational process. The peculiarity of the educational system in connection with new information technologies is evinced by the fact that this system is not only a consumer of NIT but is a source of development and advancement of these technologies and actively participates in the formation of a modern informational environment.

Today, the educational system of Russia has a vast information infrastructure which includes 89 educational and scientific centres functioning under the supervision of the Centre for New Information Technologies of Ministry of General and Professional Education of Russia. These centres are, as a rule, units of the large universities and subdivided by scale and function into republican, regional, municipal, special (objective) Centres of New Information Technologies (CNIT).

All these centres have modern computer equipment, qualified personnel and developed telecommunication possibilities. More than 30 of these centres carry out a role in the universities network of Russia RUNNET nodes, work in tight contact with the Internet Centres of Dj. Soros. Regional Centres of Information Technologies were organized with the maintenance of the regional authorities and Rectors Counsels of the Region. They carry out a broad spectrum of functions connected with the implementation of new information technologies in all spheres of regional activity.

In the wealth of manifestations of NIT in the sphere of education, Internet is the most important of course. The main telecommunication Internet environment for the educational enterprises in Russia is RUNNET (Russian Universities Network). This network has nodes in 34 large towns of Russia (Moscow, St-Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Vladivostok, Tambov, etc.). Summary capacity of the external channels of the RUNNET is 10 Mbps (Teleglobe 6Mbps and NORDUnet). This makes it possible to work with modern multimedia applications not only in Russia with an acceptable quality. RUNNET structure actively uses satellite segments and ground fiber optic lines.

Experiments with high speed ATM* channels are on the agenda. In particular the exploitation of ATM channel Moscow/St. Petersburg has begun. RUNNET is not the only network which lets educational enterprises access Internet. RBNET, Relarn-IP, FreeNet, RadioMSU are the others. Besides these networks, which have external links, regional and corporate networks have been actively developed over the last few years.

These regional networks allow a broad range of schools, colleges and universities to be connected to the Internet at the local level. Examples of these regional networks of science and education are ROKSON (St.Petersburg), KUBANNet (Kuban), EUNET (Ekaterinburg), TSUNet (Tambov) and others. The mentioned networks incorporate in their structure local networks of regional educational enterprises. Therefore today we can speak of the existence of a rapidly developed unified telecommunication information environment in the educational sphere of Russia.

The informational processes in this environment evolve in different directions. In the context of this conference the most interesting is of course the direction connected with people active in the sphere of art and culture. Almost all www servers of the regional centres of new information technologies have pages devoted to regional history, culture and art, proposed virtual photo tours associated with sights, and architectural monuments of historical importance. The regional museums are represented on many www servers of CNIT and universities.

On the www server of Voronezh state university we can see Voronezh museum of literature of I.S. Nikitin, Regional historic museum, Ostrogozh art museum, museum of I.N. Kramskoy, Alexandrov people museum of M.E. Piatnitsky. The big gallery of Novgorod icons is represented on the www server of Novgorod state university. A big list of museums is on the www server of Kazan state university (Ethnography museum, Archeological museum, Museum of A.M. Gorky, virtual museum of jewellery). On the www server of Tambov state technical university we can see pages of Tambov regional art gallery, museum of A.M. Gerasimov, museum of G.V. Chicherin, Tambov historic museum, museum of people education and others. Art museum, Russian museum of photography and others find space on the www server maintained by the State university of Nizhny Novgoro. One can see pages of the Y.M. Lermontov museum in Tarhany on the www server of Penza state university. Karelia state museum, art museum and others are represented on the server of Petrozavodsk state university. On the server of Vladivostok state university one can find pages of Archeology museum.

Besides the reflection on the www pages of Russian universities of real flesh and blood museums, the important role belongs to the virtual museums which exist only on www pages. For example, the students’ projects of the Russian state humanitarian university founded the basis for the so called \'93Open museum\'94 on the server.

On the Moscow state university www server one can see the mirrors of the famous virtual museums of Nicolas Pioch and Carol Jackson. WWW server of Perm state university has interesting Virtual club of Perms photo artists, Virtual modern art gallery, Cartoons gallery. On the server of Krasnoyarsk technical state university the exhibition of modern Krasnoyarsk artists is represented. Virtual museum of applied art of Siberia is placed on the www server of Novosibirsk state technical university.

The constant increase of the bandwidth of telecommunication networks of science and education; improvements in compression techniques, improvements of the technical parameters of servers and client hardware, stimulate the teams of universities server developers.

Particular examples of these experiments can be found on the www servers of the Centre of New Information Technologies of Ministry of Education of Russia, the server of Volgograd state technical university, Cheliabinsk state technical university and others. It is an interesting fact that in many cases www pages devoted to the history, art and culture emerges not only on the www servers of «classical» universities but on the servers of technical universities. This testifies to the expressive humanitarian influence of the Internet to the technological culture of society and to that of technical education in particular.

* ATM - asynchronous transfer mode - асинхронный режим передачи - (стандартизованная ITU (International Telecommunication Union) технология коммутации пакетов фиксированной длины)