12所全球頂尖大學將提供免費網絡授課

12所全球頂尖大學將提供免費網絡授課

As part of a seismic shift in online learning that is reshaping higher education, Coursera, a year-old company founded by two Stanford University computer scientists, announced on Tuesday that a dozen major research universities are joining the venture. In the fall, Coursera will offer 100 or more free massive open online courses, or MOOCs, that are expected to draw millions of students and adult learners globally.

在線學習領域一場翻天覆地的變化，正在重塑高等教育的版圖。作為這種變化的一部分，一年前由兩位斯坦福大學(Stanford University)計算機學家創(chuàng)立的Coursera公司周二宣布，12所綜合性研究型大學將加入該公司的項目。今年秋天，Coursera將提供100門甚至更多免費的“大規(guī)模開放式網絡課程”(MOOC)，預計會吸引全球數以百萬計的學生和成人學員。

Even before the expansion, Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, the founders of Coursera, said it had registered 680,000 students in 43 courses with its original partners, Michigan, Princeton, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania.

Coursera的創(chuàng)始人達夫妮·科勒(Daphne Koller)和吳恩達(Andrew Ng)稱，即便在擴充前，就已經有68萬名學生注冊了43門課程，首批合作院校為密歇根大學(Michigan University)、普林斯頓大學(Princeton University)、斯坦福大學(Stanford University)和賓夕法尼亞大學(University of Pennsylvania)。

新一批12所大學將加入達夫妮·科勒(Daphne Koller)和吳恩達(Andrew Ng)開辦的在線教育項目。

Now, the partners will include the California Institute of Technology; Duke University; the Georgia Institute of Technology; Johns Hopkins University; Rice University; the University of California, San Francisco; the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; the University of Washington; and the University of Virginia, where the debate over online education was cited in last’s month’s ousting — quickly overturned — of its president, Teresa A. Sullivan. Foreign partners include the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, the University of Toronto and EPF Lausanne, a technical university in Switzerland.

現在，Coursera的合作院校還將包括加州理工學院(Caltech)、杜克大學(Duke University)、佐治亞理工學院(Georgia Institute of Technology)、約翰·霍普金斯大學(Johns Hopkins University)、萊斯大學( Rice University)、加州大學舊金山分校(University of California, San Francisco)、伊利諾伊大學厄本那-香檳分校(University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)、華盛頓大學(University of Washington)以及弗吉尼亞大學(University of Virginia)。上月，在弗吉尼亞大學校長特雷莎·A·沙利文(Teresa A. Sullivan)被罷免——隨即很快復職——的風波中，圍繞網絡教育的辯論也是一個因素。海外合作院校包括蘇格蘭愛丁堡大學(University of Edinburgh)、加拿大多倫多大學(University of Toronto)以及瑞士洛桑聯邦理工學院(EPF Lausanne)。

And some of them will offer credit.

其中一些學校將授予學分。

“This is the tsunami,” said Richard A. DeMillo, the director of the Center for 21st Century Universities at Georgia Tech. “It’s all so new that everyone’s feeling their way around, but the potential upside for this experiment is so big that it’s hard for me to imagine any large research university that wouldn’t want to be involved.”

“這就像一場海嘯，”佐治亞理工學院“21世紀大學教育研究中心”(Center for 21st Century Universities)主任理查德·A·德米羅(Richard A. DeMillo)說道。“一切都很新，大家都在摸索著前進。但這項實驗的潛在發(fā)展空間如此之大，我無法想象有哪所像樣的研究型大學不想參與。”

Because of technological advances — among them, the greatly improved quality of online delivery platforms, the ability to personalize material and the capacity to analyze huge numbers of student experiences to see which approach works best — MOOCs are likely to be a game-changer, opening higher education to hundreds of millions of people.

眾多技術進步(包括質量得到大幅改進的線上授課平臺、個性化設計的教學材料，以及通過分析大量學生體驗來找出最佳教學方法的能力)意味著，MOOC有望成為游戲規(guī)則的改變者，將高等教育帶給數以百萬計的人。

Worldwide access is Coursera’s goal. About two-thirds of Coursera’s students are from overseas, and most courses attract tens of thousands of students, an irresistible draw for many professors.

覆蓋全世界是Coursera的目標。Coursera約三分之二的學生來自美國境外，而且多數課程會吸引成千上萬名學生，這對很多教授來說是無法阻擋的誘惑。

“EPF Lausanne, which offers courses in French, opens up access for students in half of Africa,” Ms. Koller said.

“開設法語課程的洛桑聯邦理工學院，使我們能夠吸引非洲一半地區(qū)的學生，”科勒說。

To date, most MOOCs have covered computer science, math and engineering, but Coursera is expanding into areas like medicine, poetry and history. MOOCs were largely unknown until a wave of publicity last year about Stanford University’s free online artificial intelligence course attracted 160,000 students from 190 countries. Only a small percentage of the students completed the course, but even so, the numbers were staggering.

迄今，多數MOOC覆蓋了計算機科學、數學和工程學課程，但Coursera將拓展進入醫(yī)學、詩歌和歷史等領域。去年，斯坦福大學的人工智能免費網絡課程吸引了來自190個國家的16萬名學生，引發(fā)大量媒體報道，使此前基本上鮮為人知的MOOC進入公眾視線。盡管只有一小部分學生完成了該課程，但相關數字仍十分驚人。

“The fact that so many people are so curious about these courses shows the yearning for education,” said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education. “There are going to be lots of bumps in the road, but this is a very important experiment at a very substantial scale.”

“有這么多人對這些課程很感興趣，表明了大家對教育的渴求，”美國教育理事會(American Council on Education)會長莫莉·科比特·布羅德(Molly Corbett Broad)說。“道路會充滿坎坷，但這是一場規(guī)模很大的重要實驗。”

So far, MOOCs have offered no credit, just a “statement of accomplishment” and a grade. But the University of Washington said it planned to offer credit for its Coursera offerings this fall, and other online ventures are also moving in that direction. David P. Szatmary, the university’s vice provost, said that to earn credit, students would probably have to pay a fee, do extra assignments and work with an instructor.

迄今MOOC沒有授予學分，而只是提供一份《結業(yè)證明》和一個分數。但華盛頓大學表示，它計劃今年秋天為其Coursera課程提供學分，其他網絡教育項目也在向這個方向發(fā)展。該校副教務長戴維·P·紹特馬里(David P. Szatmary)說，要想拿到學分，學生很可能需要交一筆費用，完成額外的作業(yè)，并接受導師的指導。

Experts say it is too soon to predict how MOOCs will play out, or which venture will emerge as the leader. Coursera, with about $22 million in financing, including $3.7 million in equity investment from Caltech and Penn, may currently have the edge. But no one is counting out edX, a joint venture of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or Udacity, the company founded by Sebastian Thrun of Stanford, who taught the artificial intelligence course last year.

專家們表示，要預測MOOC的前景如何，或是哪個項目將成為該領域的領導者，現在還為時過早。Coursera公司擁有大約2200萬美元的融資，包括加州理工學院和賓夕法尼亞大學的370萬美元股本投資，目前看來，該公司可能占據優(yōu)勢。然而，哈佛大學(Harvard University)和麻省理工學院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology，MIT)合資成立的edX，以及在去年教授人工智能網絡課程的斯坦福大學的塞巴斯蒂安·特龍(Sebastian Thrun)所創(chuàng)立的Udacity公司，都不容小覷。

Each company offers online materials broken into manageable chunks, with short video segments, interactive quizzes and other activities — as well as online forums where students answer one another’s questions.

各公司都將線上教材分為易于應對的單元，并配有視頻短片、互動測試和其他活動，以及學生可以互相提問的網上論壇。

But even Mr. Thrun, a master of MOOCs, cautioned that for all their promise, the courses are still experimental. “I think we are rushing this a little bit,” he said. “I haven’t seen a single study showing that online learning is as good as other learning.”

然而，就連MOOC大師特龍也告誡稱，盡管這些課程看似前景光明，但它們仍是試驗性的。“我認為，我們過于急匆匆了一點。我還沒看到有任何研究表明，在線學習和其他學習方式一樣有效。”

Each university designs and produces its own courses and decides whether to offer credit. Coursera does not pay the universities, and the universities do not pay Coursera, but both incur substantial costs. Contracts provide that if a revenue stream emerges, the company and the universities will share it.

各大學將設計并制作自己的課程，并決定是否提供學分。Coursera不會向這些大學付費，大學也不付錢給Coursera，然而雙方都會發(fā)生大量成本。合同規(guī)定，如果出現一個收入來源，公司和大學將分享收入。

Although MOOCs will have to be self-sustaining some day — whether by charging students for credentials or premium services or by charging corporate recruiters for access to the best students — Ms. Koller and university officials said that was not a pressing concern.

盡管有朝一日MOOC將不得不自立(無論是讓學生付費獲得學歷證書或高級服務，還是讓公司招聘者付費接觸到優(yōu)秀學生)，但科勒和大學官員都表示，這并不是一件緊迫的事。

“Every academic has a little soapbox, and most of the time we have five people listening to us,” said Scott E. Page, a University of Michigan professor who taught Coursera’s model thinking course and was thrilled when 40,000 students downloaded his videos. “By most calculations, I had about 200 years’ worth of students in my class.”

“每個學者都有自己的三尺講臺，而大多數時候，只有5個人在聽我們講，”密歇根大學的斯科特·E·佩奇(Scott E. Page)教授說。他在Coursera教授《模型思維》課程，當看到有4萬名學生下載了他的視頻時，他激動不已。“根據推算，這個班的人數相當于我200年的課堂學生總數。”