Digital Economy and Its Role in the Development of Online Higher Education

Abstract

The term “digital economy” has been widely used not only in theory, but also in practice. However, the scientists have not yet reached agreement of opinion about the interpretation of the concept. In the present paper, the authors give definitions to the following concepts: digital economy and digitization of education. Besides, the authors have analysed the main advantages and disadvantages of online education and investigated the influence of digital economy on the development of online higher education at universities. The present investigation used such general scientific methods as: observation, descriptive research and modelling. The significance of the paper is determined by the fact that nowadays there is not enough investigation devoted to the theme of the influence of digital economy on the development of online education. The authors state that digitalization of economy directly impacts the development of online education. For example, there appear a lot of new knowledge, abilities and skills that an employee must possess, and there develops active interaction between business sphere and educational institutions due to the need in regular training of employees on the job. Besides, qualified employees and the complex of all the correctly organized interconnected processes determine the successful transition to digital society.