The paper focuses on one of the topical aspects of the development of digital didactics in higher education, which is determined by the need to identify the pedagogical conditions for improving the use of tools and opportunities of distance learning. The paper aims to identify the pedagogical conditions of the didactic effectiveness of an online lesson in the current educational processes of universities. The study involved students and teachers of the Department of Management at the Vladimir Branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (training program 38.03.04 "State and municipal administration"). The research uses a systematic approach, which involves a set of research methods such as survey, observation, comparison, analysis, and the methods of modeling and descriptive statistics. Implicating these methods, the authors obtained data for a comparative analysis of the activity of university students in various academic disciplines during distance learning. The authors determined the optimal duration of the online class in the conditions of digital education. It is proved that the lesson should be built with the consideration of students' activity peaks, which are mainly in the first half of the lesson. The authors found that the most important condition for the effectiveness of distance learning is the activity of students in the learning process. The research novelty lies in obtaining the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the online lesson as a didactic unit of distance learning. The results allow the authors to draw conclusions that may be of practical relevance for organizing the educational process in higher education. [For the complete volume, "Digital Education in Russia and Central Asia. Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects. Volume 65," see ED675848.]