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Now online provision is transforming higher education, giving the best univer

游客2023-12-31  27
问题    Now online provision is transforming higher education, giving the best universities a chance to widen their catch, opening new opportunities for the agile, and threatening doom for the slow and average. The roots are decades old. Britain’s Open University started teaching via radio and television in 1971. MIT and others have been posting lectures on the Internet for a decade.
   But the change in 2012 has been electrifying. Two start-ups, both spawned by Stanford University, are recruiting students at an astonishing rate for "massive open online courses" or MOOCs. In January, Sebastian Thrun, a computer-science professor there, announced the launch of Udacity. It started to offer courses the next month — a nanosecond by the standards of old-style university decision-making. In April, two of Mr. Thrun’s ex-colleagues launched a rival, Coursera. At first, it offered online courses from four universities. By August, it had signed up 1 million students, now boasting over 2 million. Harvard and MIT announced they would launch edX, a non-profit venture. Other schools have joined, too.
   One spur is economic and political pressure to improve productivity in higher education. The cost per student in the U.S. has risen at almost five times the rate of inflation since 1983. For universities beset by heavy debts, smaller taxpayer subsidies and a cyclical decline in enrollment, online courses mean better tuition, higher graduation rates and lower-cost degrees. New technology also gives the innovative a chance to shine against their rivals.
   MOOCs are more than good university lectures available online. The real innovation comes from integrating academic talks with interactive coursework, such as automated tests, quizzes and even games. Real-life lectures have no pause, rewind (or fast-forward) buttons; MOOCs let students learn at their own pace, typically with short, engaging videos. The cost of the courses can be spread over huge numbers of students. MOOCs enrich education for worldwide students, especially the cash-strapped, and those dissatisfied with what their own colleges are offering. But for others, especially in poor countries, online education opens the door to yearning for opportunities.
   Some of Europe’s best schools are determinedly unruffled. Oxford says that MOOCs "will not prompt it to change anything", adding that it "does not see them as revolutionary in anything other than scale". Cambridge even says it is "nonsense" to see MOOCs as a rival; it is "not in the business of online education". Such universities are likely to continue to attract the best (and richest) applicants who want personal tuition and the whiff of research in the air. For these places, MOOCs are chiefly a marketing opportunity.
   To compete head-on with established providers, MOOCs must not just teach but also provide credible qualifications. The vast majority of Coursera, Udacity and edX offerings do not provide a degree. This may be one reason for MOOCs’ high dropout rates. Another worry is that online tests are open to cheating and plagiarism. Peer grading even if honest, may be flawed. [br] The MOOCs’ dropout rate is high because______.
选项 A、they lose to the established providers
B、they don’t allow students to cheat in online tests
C、they are not aware of the importance of qualifications
D、most courses offered don’t provide degrees
答案 D
解析    细节识别。根据第六段“The vast majority of Coursera，Udacity and edX offerings do not provide a degree．This may be one reason for MOOCs’high dropout rates”可知，Coursera，Udacity和edX提供的大多数在线课程都不授予学位，或许这是慕课辍学率居高不下的一个原因。【知识拓展】Coursera，Udacity和edX是慕课三巨头。Udacity成立时间最早，课程以计算机类为主，数量不多，但打造的都是精品，许多精致细节专为在线授课而设计。Coursera是目前发展最大的慕课平台，囊括近500门来自世界各地大学的课程，门类丰富，但也良莠不齐。edX是哈佛大学与MIT(麻省理工学院)共同出资组建的非营利性组织，与全球顶级高校结盟，系统源代码开放，课程形式设计更自由灵活。它们提供的很多课程仅供在线学习，没有授予学位资格。
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