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  3. DOTCOM mania was slow in coming to higher education, but now it has the venerable industry firmly in its grip. Since the launch

DOTCOM mania was slow in coming to higher education, but now it has the venerable industry firmly in its grip. Since the launch

admin2016-10-15  54
问题     DOTCOM mania was slow in coming to higher education, but now it has the venerable industry firmly in its grip. Since the launch early last year of Udacity and Coursera, two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete. Meanwhile, the MOOCs have multiplied in number, resources and student recruitment— without yet having figured out a business model of their own.
    Besides providing online courses to their own(generally fee-paying)students, universities have felt
    obliged to join the MOOC revolution to avoid being guillotined by it. Coursera has formed partnerships with 83 universities and colleges around the world, including many of America’s top-tier institutions.
    EdX, a non-profit MOOC provider founded in May 2012 by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and backed with $ 60m of their money, is now a consortium of 28 institutions, the most recent joiner being the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. Led by the Open University, which pioneered distance-learning in the 1970s, FutureLearn, a consortium of 21 British, one Irish and one Australian university, plus other educational bodies, will start offering MOOCs later this year. But Oxford and Cambridge remain aloof, refusing to join what a senior Oxford figure fears may be a "lemming-like rush" into MOOCs.
    On July 10th Coursera said it had raised another $ 43m in venture capital, on top of the $ 22m it banked last year. Although its enrolments have soared, and now exceed 4m students, this is a huge leap of faith by investors that the firm can develop a viable business model. The new money should allow Coursera to build on any advantage it has from being a first mover among a rapidly growing number of MOOC providers.
    The industry has similar network economics to Amazon, eBay and Google, says Ms Roller, in that "content producers go to where most consumers are, and consumers go to where the most content is. " Simon Nelson, the chief executive of FutureLearn, disagrees. "Anyone who thinks the rules of engagement have already been written by the existing players is massively underestimating the potential of the technology," he says.
    Certainly, there is plenty of experimentation with business models taking place. The MOOCs themselves may be free, but those behind them think there will be plenty of revenue opportunities. Coursera has started charging to provide certificates for those who complete its courses and want proof, perhaps for a future employer. It is also starting to license course materials to universities that want to beef up their existing offering. However, it has abandoned for now attempts to help firms recruit employees from among Coursera’s students, because catering to the different needs of each employer was "not a scalable model", says Ms Koller.
    For Udacity, in contrast, working with companies to train existing and future employees is now the heart of its business model. It has tie-ups with several firms, including Google. It recently formed a partnership with AT&T, along with Georgia Tech, to offer a master’s degree in computer science. Course materials will be free, but students will pay around $ 7,000 for tuition. EdX is taking yet another tack, selling its MOOC technology to universities like Stanford, both to create their own MOOC offerings and to make physically attending university more attractive, by augmenting existing teaching.
According to Paragraph 2, universities have felt obliged to join the MOOC revolution because
选项 A、they do not want to be killed by it
B、they deem very highly of its business model
C、they value the potential of this technology
D、they want to make physically attending university more attractive
答案A
解析 本题考查考生对第二段中有关为什么越来越多的大学要加入到MOOC变革当中的理解。第二个一开始就回答了这个问题，“universities have felt obliged to join the MOOC revolution to avoidbeing guillotined by it”，“guillotine”是旧时行刑所用的断头台，这里是拟人手法的运用，即大学加入MOOC为了避免被其送上断头台，被其杀死。因此[A]是正确答案。[B]属误解原文，文章在最后三段的确提到了MOOC在商业模式上的尝试，并且提到一些风险投资看重它的商业模式，但是文章并没有任何地方提到大学看重它的商业模式，因此不正确；同理，[C]选项出现在第五段最后FutureLearn的首席执行官西蒙·耐尔森所说的话里，也不是大学看重它的技术潜力，因此也不正确。[D]选项出现在最后一段的结尾处，提到EdX正以另一种方式，向例如斯坦福这样的大学销售在线公开课程的技术，一方面帮助他们建立自己的在线公开课程，另一方面通过增加现有的教学，使参加在校学习变得更具吸引力。可见，这是大学参与MOOC带来的好处之一，而且只是针对EdX向例如斯坦福这样的大学销售在线公开课程的技术，并不是第二段所说的很多大学加入MOOCs变革的原因，也不正确。
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