New trends in higher education: Massive open online courses as an innovative tool for increasing university performance

The name massive open online courses (MOOC) was offered in 2008, thus, this is relatively new phenomenon for higher education and especially for Russian universities. In 2017, the national project was launched by the Russian Government, which is called 'Development of the export potential of the Russian education system'. According to the projects' objectives, Russian institutions of higher education should implement efficient measures aimed to increase the attractiveness and competitiveness of Russian education on the international market of educational services in order to increase the share of non-primary exports of the Russian Federation (Passport of the National Project 'Development of the Export Potential of the Russian Education System', 2017). In the framework of this project, the authors have analysed data received by the Russian universities on their foreign language MOOCs and developed recommendations for their promotion on international market. Copyright © 2019 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.