Practice-oriented online-courses as a factor of increasing the quality of engineering and economic education

Modern economic development requires from the higher education system the learning of highly qualified specialists with not only deep theoretical knowledge, but also ability to apply acquired skills in practice. The modern specialist should quickly adapt in the world of new technologies and fast reorient to new management models. So, the issue raised more frequently nowadays is that the higher education have to become practice-oriented in order to a graduate could immediately apply the gained knowledge after ending of university. Practical orientation becomes the most important direction of development of the entire higher education system, capable providing a new qualitative level of training of specialists. Modern information and communication technologies make it possible to build e-learning courses focused on learning in any direction. Today, new innovative forms of information technology, in particular virtualization technology, allow creating virtual laboratories in which students are able to receive any practical skills. The paper examines trends in the development of practice-oriented online courses that can improve the quality of higher education. The possibilities of virtualization of an automated banking system for educational purposes are considered. The capability of learning in different disciplines through a virtual laboratory using a cloud-based automated system able to provide acquaintance of students to real work of financial institution is analyzed.