MOOC已經(jīng)到能代替大學(xué)教育的時(shí)候了嗎?
作者:滬江英語
來源:cnn
2014-04-11 15:16
The country's higher education system seems ripe for tech industry disruption. Student debt is out of control. Graduation rates are unacceptably low. And employers still can't find enough new recruits with the training they're looking for.
美國的高等教育體系似乎已經(jīng)很成熟,可以抵御技術(shù)產(chǎn)業(yè)對教育的影響。但另一方面我們發(fā)現(xiàn),在高等教育體系下,學(xué)生貸款高得失控,畢業(yè)率特別低,大學(xué)生接受的教育仍然不能使他們適應(yīng)日后的職場需求。
Enter online learning. Specifically, Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, have been heralded as a savior for students disadvantaged by an inefficient, often rigid, and increasingly pricey higher ed system. The cost advantage of recording one lecture and broadcasting it to thousands of students regardless of location is undeniable.
在這種情況下,在線教育就登場了。與低效率、刻板、費(fèi)用漸長的高等教育體系相比較,大規(guī)模在線開放課程(MOOC)可謂那些處于劣勢的學(xué)生的救星。毫無疑問,在線教育有諸多優(yōu)勢,例如錄制在線課程成本相對低,而且可以同時(shí)容納數(shù)千名身處各地的學(xué)生共同聽課等等。
And the potential social benefits are huge. Andrew Ng, founder of leading MOOC-maker Coursera, said in a recent interview with Fortune he hopes the flexibility and practicality of free courses on-demand will make "a great education a fundamental human right."
在線教育還能創(chuàng)造巨大的社會(huì)效益。MOOC巨頭Coursera的創(chuàng)立者吳恩達(dá)日前在接受《財(cái)富》周刊采訪時(shí)指出,在線課堂具有靈活性、實(shí)際性和需求主導(dǎo)性,他希望免費(fèi)在線教育的發(fā)展,能幫助樹立“優(yōu)質(zhì)教育是一項(xiàng)基本人權(quán)” 概念。
There's plenty of interest so far: Coursera has more than 80 universities and other institutions offering courses on its platform, broadcasting to millions of students. The top three MOOC-makers -- Coursera, Udacity, and EdX -- all appear on the cusp of convincing major institutions to offer some of their courses for credit. Cue many, many articles expressing deep angst that the traditional on-campus learning environment as we know it could cease to exist.
迄今為止,很多人都對大規(guī)模在線開放課程表現(xiàn)出了興趣。Coursera的網(wǎng)絡(luò)課程平臺(tái)上已經(jīng)有80多家大學(xué)和院校機(jī)構(gòu)提供的課程,向數(shù)以百萬的學(xué)生們開放。在線開放課程三大品牌——Coursera、Udacity和EdX,都極力推薦學(xué)校機(jī)構(gòu)向他們的課程平臺(tái)提供可計(jì)入學(xué)分的在線課程。也有許多文章都聲稱,我們所熟知的傳統(tǒng)在校教育可以偃旗息鼓了。
But all that fretting may be premature: The MOOC business model seems to have a few issues of its own. Take, for example, a recent competition put on by Boston consultancy Fuld & Company, in which business school students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, Dartmouth College, and Northwestern University staged a "war game" between the education world's power-players du jour. The winner of the $5,000 grand prize was the team that presented the best plan for the future of higher education, and the best strategy to make money from it. Coursera, despite being easily the sexiest company at the competition, did not take home the grand prize.
但是所有這些喧囂都顯得有些不夠成熟:大規(guī)模在線開放課程產(chǎn)業(yè)缺少自主研發(fā)的內(nèi)容。舉例來說,在日前一個(gè)由波士頓福爾達(dá)咨詢公司舉辦的比賽中,來自麻省理工學(xué)院、波士頓大學(xué)、達(dá)特茅斯學(xué)院和美國西北大學(xué)的學(xué)生們和在線教育領(lǐng)域諸多知名品牌代表進(jìn)行了一場“演習(xí)”,能制定出最佳的高等教育發(fā)展未來計(jì)劃的團(tuán)隊(duì)獲勝,并能獲得5千美元的獎(jiǎng)金。Coursera 雖然是比賽中最被看好的隊(duì)伍,卻未能抱獎(jiǎng)而歸。
The problem: the business model. "Wondering how they could monetize this technology, that was a big concern," says Fuld & Co. founder and president Leonard Fuld. The team proposed providing a variety of online courses, and then making money by charging universities. They likened themselves to Netflix, spreading a small amount of high-quality, specialized content to a large subscriber base.
問題的癥結(jié)在于商業(yè)模式。Fuld & Co.公司創(chuàng)始人萊納德·福爾達(dá)說,“如何將MOOC課程轉(zhuǎn)換成利潤,這是一個(gè)大問題?!盕uld & Co.的建議是,為學(xué)生們提供一系列的在線課程,通過向校方收費(fèi)來盈利。該公司已經(jīng)和網(wǎng)飛公司Netflix聯(lián)手,構(gòu)建一個(gè)有大量用戶來預(yù)定課程的網(wǎng)絡(luò)課程平臺(tái),在這個(gè)平臺(tái)上提供數(shù)量較少、品質(zhì)較高的專業(yè)課程。
Coursera is planning to charge universities licensing fees (with some of the revenue going back to the original school that created the content). Right now, though, the bulk of the company's revenue comes through selling verified completion certificates. The program, called Signature Track, allows users to pay a fee in order to verify their identities. The company announced in September that it brought in more than $1 million since starting to offer the service nine months earlier.
Coursera 計(jì)劃向院校征收網(wǎng)絡(luò)授權(quán)費(fèi)(一些利潤會(huì)返回到提供在線課程的院校)。但就目前情況來看,Coursera公司的大部分利潤還來自出售各種資格證明。這項(xiàng)名為“節(jié)奏軌”的項(xiàng)目,允許用戶只要付費(fèi)就可以獲得資格認(rèn)證。Coursera 在9月份的時(shí)候宣布,自從9個(gè)月前開始提供資格證明服務(wù)以來,公司已經(jīng)獲得了超過一百萬美元的利潤。