The digitalization of higher education is a long-term trend that gained a new impetus for further development because of the forced transition to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the article is to analyze the impact of digital transformation on the educational process in universities and to describe the risks through the students’ eyes. The analysis is based on the results of a survey conducted by the authors in 2020 among students of two universities - Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and the Institute of the Trade Union Movement of the General Confederation of Labor of Vietnam (IPLV).The article describes the methodology of the online survey. The attitude towards distance learning is interpreted as a three-level attitude with emotional, cognitive and behavioral aspects. It is suggested that students’ readiness to switch to distance learning is determined by a set of macro and micro factors. Among the macro factors are the national specifics of the educational system, traditions in the field of higher education, infrastructure, the national educational policy, and the mobilization potential of the population. Among the micro factors are the cognitive and other psychological characteristics of the students, the socio-psychological openness to innovation.According to the survey results, there is certain similarity in the way Russian and Vietnamese students assess their experience of distance learning. At the same time, significant differences in the perception of the outcome of the digital transformation of education have been revealed. For MGIMO students, major risks are associated with dehumanization, the severing of social ties, and the possible loss of student status. For Vietnamese students the most significant risks are mainly associated with the fears of the decreasing quality of education. It is therefore concluded that distance learning is both the field of opportunities and possible source of individual and institutional risks.

The article analyzes the problem of higher education teachers’ digital competence formation in relation to the university academic development. In the system of academic development, a higher education teacher becomes an active subject and an object of influence of the university structures.The notion of “academic capital” – a system of professional competencies of a teacher, in whose structure digital competencies acquire special importance, is introduced to assess the effectiveness of academic development.It is assumed that depending on the attitudes towards the development and integration of digital competencies into professional practices, teachers are divided into different categories according to their role in the academic development.In order to test the hypothesis, focus group research was carried out with teachers of the humanities, social and natural sciences from universities in different regions of Russia with at least three years of professional experience. A total of five focus groups of seven teachers in each were conducted.In the context of academic development, digital educational practices were analyzed, and three types of agents were identified – innovators and promoters, who contribute to the academic development of the higher education institutions, and routiners, who slow down the introduction of digital technologies. It is concluded that a possible barrier to the innovative activities for teachers is an ambiguous attitude towards the process of digitalization of the education sector.

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The article describes sociological research methodology referring to the problems of digitalization in education. The authors’ concept of digitalization is defined according to the specific aims of the study, emphasizing the peculiarities of the educational sphere. Digitalization in education can be considered as an introduction and active use of digital technologies at different stages of the educational process. The study has determined that the introduction of digital technologies in education leads to the unintended consequences which can have unanticipated effects on educational institutions and their actors. The unintended consequences are conceptualized using R. Merton’s theoretical perspective and are defined as unexpected, unforeseen results caused by a purposive action. They could be divided into three subgroups: 1) unexpected benefit, 2) unexpected drawback, 3) perverse result. To study the unintended consequences the authors designed a methodological approach which focuses on macro and micro factors which determine attitudes to digitalization on the part of various participants of the educational process. The complex structure of the empirical object is determined by the hypothesis, that the unintended consequences of digitalization vary for different social groups involved in the process of education and highly depend on the context. The educational process is described as a complex system with two major components and structured in accordance with specific spheres in which introduction of digital technologies is possible. In conclusion, authors put forward a hypothesis that the suggested methodological approach will contribute to relating the unintended consequences of digitalization to their sources, also identified by R. Merton: ignorance or incomplete analysis; errors in analysis of the problem or following outdated habits; immediate interests overriding the long-term ones; following basic values which require / prohibit certain actions; self-defeating prophecy. Keywords: digitalization, socio-educational sphere, education, unintended consequences, attitudes to digitalization

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