To Vladimir Filippov’s anniversary

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In 2021, Vladimir Filippov, the President of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, the founder of the “RUDN Journal of Informatization in Education” celebrates his 70th anniversary. “RUDN Journal of Informatization in Education” covers key areas and significant events in information and communication technologies in education, presents the most influential EdTech people on its pages. Today, we acknowledge Academician V. Filippov’s distinguished contribution to the understudied but vital area of contemporary science. Vladimir Filippov’s efforts and activity in the Ministry of Education of Russia, the Higher Attestation Commission, the Russian Academy of Education, and at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, the unique and one of the leading national universities with a recognized international status, have influenced the emergence of research in the field of education digitalization in Russia and abroad. More than 20 years ago, Vladimir Filippov initiated the Federal Expert Council (FEC). Its 32nd section, “E-resources in Education”, assessed the quality of electronic learning resources at the state level. The remarkable fact is that even at the beginning of the 2000th it was referred to as the “digital” section of the FEC. Until 2005, its performance had laid a scientific foundation for evaluation and expertise of e-resources. Most of the guidelines and assessment criteria developed and enforced at that time are approved today. No one in education has provided such a massive, professional, and widely accepted experience in the field of digital technologies, their didactic and content characteristics, before or since. The journal Editorial Board members working in this section were involved in another innovative project directed by V. Filippov: the introduction of the State Exam in Computer Studies. The new exam has adopted the procedure for final tests in the school discipline, significantly influenced the evolution of computer studies, set the course for the curriculum content development, emphasized the fundamental nature, interdisciplinarity, and autonomy of the discipline at school. Since then, the entire generation of school graduates who use digital technologies in life and professional fields has grown up. Vladimir Filippov took an active part in the foundation of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education in Russia, “Information Technologies in Education”, the International Congress with a 30-year history, the development of digital systems of training and testing scientific workforce. Under his leadership, the RUDN University was the leader in conducting research and teacher training programs in education. Digitalization in higher education has always been distinguished among other university research projects, has had a national or international status. On Vladimir Filippov’s initiative, a variety of electronic educational resources has been created. They include the federal framework for educational electronic publications and resources, online education portals, public electronic resources on digitalization of education: “Information technologies in education”, “Multimedia technologies in education”, “Basis for development the educational electronic resources” and others. Remarkably, even today the most of the teachers’ and professors’ training and retraining programs, students’ course papers, and diploma theses are based on the teaching and learning approaches developed in the RUDN University. Vladimir Filippov has created a special area in the field of EdTech. The author team led by him has been developing ICT cross-training educational approaches for almost two decades. The evidence is confirmed by the “Informatization of cross-border education” course for Russian and foreign students at RUDN University, the series of publications and textbooks, patents, and inventor’s certificates for various online courses. In many respects, such undertakings provided a powerful incentive to the foundation of a new scientific journal at RUDN University in 2004. The journal exposes the challenges of ICT in education. Pedagogical science is opening itself up to a broader number of new scholars every year. The university has been building a community of scientists and practitioners who study trends, challenges, and prospects of ICT in higher education, and in computer studies. Since 2004 60 issues of the journal have been published. Today, “RUDN Journal of Informatization in Education” is included in the first quartile of the Russian Index of Science Citation, in the list of the peer-reviewed journals recommended by the Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, and in the top three Russian periodicals in the field of digitalization of education. UNESCO chair headed by V. Filippov together with the staff of the RUDN Institute of Comparative Educational Policy continues the research work. Due to the efforts of the institute, RUDN is recognized in Russia and all over the world as the research center in the field of digitalization in higher education. The journal itself, the International Scientific Conference “Informatization of Continuing Education” that hold more than 1000 participants from Asia, America, and Europe in 2018, the results of research in digitalization of inclusive education and learning experience present an eloquent proof of all these efforts. We are grateful for the opportunities for professional communication, co-operative research, involvement in tackling large-scale education problems, and working together with like-minded people. We wish Vladimir Filippov new achievements in science and inexhaustible energy! Happy anniversary!