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International Conference on Digital Transformation and Global Society

DTGS 2017: Digital Transformation and Global Society pp 102–112Cite as

The Effectiveness of Leading Russian Universities in Achieving Graduate-Level Employability from Social Network Data

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Part of the Communications in Computer and Information Science book series (CCIS,volume 745)

Abstract

The ‘VKontakte’ social network is increasingly becoming a useful source of data for studying many aspects of Russian social life. This research paper uses this source to investigate one of the most crucial issues for many young Russians – how successful are Russia’s leading universities in the employability rates of their graduates on completion of their studies. Official data from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation show fairly high rates of employment, but the methodology used gives us little indication of the extent to which their employment corresponds to the professional or occupational specialism they acquired at their university. The analysis with the use of the ‘VKontakte’ network provides significant insight into this question. This paper presents results about the employability of graduates from the leading Russian universities participating in the 5–100 Competitiveness and Growth Program specifically in the subjects of “Mathematics and Information Technology” and “Engineering” where a high degree of correlation between subject specialism and employment is expected (The Russian Academic Excellence Project aiming at bringing 5 Russian Universities into their list of the Top 100 world universities (For more details see: http://5top100.com/)).

Keywords

  • Higher education institutions
  • Graduate employment and employability
  • Professional and occupational competencies
  • ICT for employment evaluation
  • Social networks
  • Quality of education

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Ratings of Universities Reputation (RA Expert). Rating “100 best Russian universities”, 2016 http://raexpert.ru/rankings/vuz/vuz_2016/#3.

    Russian Education. Federal Portal. http://www.edu.ru/ratings/reyting-vuzov-rossii-2016/.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Alexander V. Boukhanovsky without whom this research would not be possible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Oksana Pavlova, Philip Kazin, Nikolay Butakov & Steven Hagen

Authors
  1. Oksana Pavlova
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  2. Philip Kazin
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  3. Nikolay Butakov
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  4. Steven Hagen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Philip Kazin .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Daniel A. Alexandrov

  2. ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Alexander V. Boukhanovsky

  3. ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Andrei V. Chugunov

  4. National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Yury Kabanov

  5. National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Olessia Koltsova

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Pavlova, O., Kazin, P., Butakov, N., Hagen, S. (2017). The Effectiveness of Leading Russian Universities in Achieving Graduate-Level Employability from Social Network Data. In: Alexandrov, D., Boukhanovsky, A., Chugunov, A., Kabanov, Y., Koltsova, O. (eds) Digital Transformation and Global Society. DTGS 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 745. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69784-0_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69784-0_8

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