The article examines the features of the organization of the educational process in the context of digitalization, analyzes the integration tendency of teachers' work in the practice of Russian universities, provides a comparative analysis of the practice of the Open University. This paper analyzes the educational experience that has developed in the process of emergency delivery of educational content to students during a pandemic. The models of mixed, purely distance and duplicate education are analyzed. The article substantiates the idea that there is a need for the formation of criteria for the quality of education online, and, therefore, the criteria for the quality of the organization of the educational process, including the work of teachers, are changing. This paper outlines some steps that are being taken by Russian universities in the field of researching trends related to improving the digital environment as a whole, regardless of the pandemic and other factors.