The social responsibility of distance higher education in the COVID-19 pandemic

The purpose of this paper is to determine the actual and ultimate necessary level of social responsibility of distance higher education in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article presents a model for assessing the effectiveness of teaching and social responsibility of distance higher education in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This model, unlike the existing ones, takes into account organizational and technological, economic, and socio-pedagogical factors. The degree of influence of the presented factors was revealed using factor analysis. Based on the taxonomic method and cluster analysis, clusters of universities were obtained by the level of teaching effectiveness and social responsibility of distance higher education in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The initial data included online reporting of SO higher education institutions from the Top 200 Ukraine rating for 2020; the results of a survey of teachers and students on the Google Forms platform. The proposed model, unlike the existing ones, makes it possible to adjust the components of distance learning at universities, to develop a system of measures to increase the level of social responsibility of distance learning in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. (C) 2022 The Authors. Published by IASE.