Tutor Versus Curator: Designing the Profession of Communication Support in the Digital Educational Environment of Russian Technical Universities

With this study, we continue to research the dynamics of educational communications under the pressure of the active adoption of digital technologies in Russian higher education. The subject of this report is to clarify the role status and communication functions of the tutor profession in the transforming educational space of Russian technical universities.The aim of the study is to model the communicative support of students and to design a professional profile of a mediator between students and the institutional structures of the university, taking into account institutional, managerial, communicative changes that are inevitable in the conditions of digitalization of the educational environment.The key aspects of the study are the following:comparative analysis of the tutor professional objectives (Western universities) and the professional objectives of the curator (Russian universities);structurization of communicative competences necessary for professional support and construction of individual trajectories of students, updated by processes of higher education digitalization;analysis of the demand for professional actions, which have historically been entrusted to teachers acting as curators in the Russian higher school, in the conditions of higher education digitalization;assessment of the resource potential of Russian technical universities to design and perform professional tasks by tutors.The investigation of the stated objectives is implemented within the methodological framework of institutional approach, theories of communicative action and communicative practices.The study takes into account empirical data obtained by foreign researchers of the tutor profession in the university environment. The original empirical database includes the results of expert interviews with professors who act as curators at technical and humanitarian faculties of a number of Russian technical universities; surveys of graduate and postgraduate students involved in professional tasks of interaction and assistance to students in solving their various social, communicative and educational problems, as well as surveys and conversations with junior students in order to clarify expectations and satisfaction with interaction with curators (or tutors).Among the theoretically clarified conclusions of the study should be included: indicators and levels of communicative competence expected from curators working on adaptation of students to the university environment; principal discrepancies between the status and real professional activity of curators and tutors when comparing the Russian, European and North American systems of higher technical education.The study aims to obtain the following results: mapping the structure of the needs for curatorial (tutoring) support among junior and senior students in various specialties; structuring the communication competencies of curators (tutors) in the context of the digitalization of higher education; assessment of the resource potential of Russian technical universities in the process of designing and performing professional tasks by tutors.