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Impact of MOOCs on Regional Differences in Higher Education in China

Authors:
Impact of MOOCs on Regional Differences in Higher
Education in China*
Cheng Li
Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai
Zhuhai, China 519087
AbstractThe rapid development of China's economy has
brought about profound changes in higher education, which
has moved from elitism to massification and even
popularization. The field of higher education has always been
the focus of all sectors of society. Under the influence of
regional economic development level, natural geographical
location and other factors, regional differences in the field of
higher education are becoming increasingly prominent. As a
new means of education technology, MOOCs also provide a
new thinking mode for narrowing regional differences in
education. Focusing on the field of higher education in China,
through literature analysis, firstly, this paper clarifies the
development process and mode of MOOCs; secondly, it sorts
out the existing regional differences in Chinese higher
education; finally, according to the characteristics of MOOCs,
it discusses the promoting role of MOOCs in closing regional
differences in China's higher education from four aspects,
namely, economic perspective, open universities, high-quality
educational resources and teacher cultivation, and criticizes
them.
KeywordsMOOCs; higher education; regional differences
I. INTRODUCTION
MOOCs refer to online courses for open access and mass
participation. (Massive Open Online Course, hereinafter
referred to as MOOCs) In 2013, MOOCs made a big push
into China. In January, The Chinese University of Hong
Kong joined the Coursera platform. In April, Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology joined Coursera. Six
Asian universities, including Peking University, Tsinghua
University, The University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology, joined edx on May
21. On July 8, Fudan University and Shanghai Jiaotong
University also announced their participation in Coursera.
Tsinghua University held a mass online education BBS
on June 3 Experts from nearly 30 universities including
Tsinghua University, Peking University, Beijing Normal
University and Fudan University attended BBS. Tsinghua
University has carried out a lot of work on online education.
It has established the Tsinghua University Research Center
on Large-scale Online Education to make in-depth study of
the laws of teaching and learning, promote the integration of
advanced computing and network technology with education,
and improve the quality and efficiency of students' learning.
On July 9, Shanghai Jiaotong University held The
International Forum on Online Education Development.
Leaders of the Ministry of Education, Shanghai Municipal
Education Commission, the global online education alliance,
Coursera, experts and scholars from more than 10
universities in China and abroad, and business people, a total
of over 200 people attended the conference. A consensus has
been made among the C9 universities and some 985
universities that with the support of the ministry of education,
they will discuss how to build MOOCs in China, establish
several high-level online course platforms, realize the
sharing of high-quality online courses, and promote the
reform of teaching mode in Chinese universities.
In addition to the positive regard for MOOCs from
universities, some Chinese companies are following suit,
launching a series of initiatives to get ahead of the curve.
NetEase, Sina, Guokr.com and others have launched open
online courses.
Youku has reached an exclusive official cooperation with
Udacity, becoming the first and only channel platform for
Udacity course release in China. Youku education channel
has launched the latest nearly 1,000 episodes of online video
courses of Udacity including translated into Chinese,
including Introduction to Statistics, Introduction to
Entrepreneurship and Introduction to Computer that have
been translated to Chinese.
MOOCs are booming in China thanks to the Chinese
government's emphasis on them, essentially on education as
a whole. The Chinese government has always put education
in a very prominent position. The report to the 18th national
congress made clear the importance of education the
cornerstone of national rejuvenation and social progress. The
twelfth five-year plan for the development of national
education points out, "... In accordance with the policy of
'giving top priority to development, education, reform and
innovation, promoting fairness and improving quality', we
should take education as the fundamental requirement,
*This paper is the research result of the 2015 University-level
Scientific Research Project of "Strengthening the University Through
Innovation" to improve the independent innovation ability (Project No.:
201571016); Research on Practical Teaching Reform of Media Product
Production Courses from the Perspective of Media Convergence (Project
No.: 2018310); 2018 Guangdong Education Science "13th Five-year Plan"
moral education special research project (Project No.: 2018JKDY04) and
the 2018 Research Capacity Improvement Program of Beijing Normal
University, Zhuhai (Project No.: 201850014).
4th International Conference on Economy, Judicature, Administration and Humanitarian Projects (JAHP 2019)
Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research, volume 94
954
promoting fairness and improving quality as the key task,
reform and innovation as the driving force, and giving top
priority to development as the guarantee..." (Ministry of
Education of the People's Republic of China, 2012) The
document emphasizes the priority to develop education and
build a country rich in human resource through education.
To achieve this goal, attention must be paid to educational
equity and equal educational opportunities (equal access to
education). Efforts should be made to promote equity and
justice in education, strive to promote balanced education,
pay attention to the right to education of different regions,
urban and rural areas, and disadvantaged groups, and ensure
that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy education, which
is an urgent need for China's social and economic
development.
MOOCs have been closely related to higher education
since birth. The world's first MOOC was a college course.
Therefore, this paper will focus on the field of higher
education in China. Through literature analysis, it will first
clarify the development process, mode and characteristics of
MOOCs. Secondly, the existing regional differences in
Chinese higher education are sorted out. Finally, the paper
proposes and criticizes the role of MOOCs in promoting
regional differences in China's higher education.
II. OVERVIEW OF MOOCS
The rapid development of science and technology is
constantly changing the form of education. Thinking about
the blackboard invented in 1841, radio in 1910, film in 1940,
television in 1957 and computer in 1967, it can be found that
every technological advance brought new changes to
education. Since 2000, experts and scholars have conducted
various researches on how the Internet and information
technology will revolutionize the forms and methods of
education. MOOCs are emerging on the basis of the
increasingly mature Internet and information technology.
Education technology is not new. Before MOOCs,
correspondence education, online education and distance
education were all popular at a time, but these technologies
eventually became an auxiliary tool for education, without
shaking the fundamental system of higher education. So
what exactly is MOOCs? Why can it arouse social concern
from the very beginning? How has MOOCs evolved and
changed? What characteristics does MOOCs have?
A. Definition and Development History of MOOCs
MOOCs are actually the product of the combination of
the connectionism and practice of online learning. Professor
Stephen Downes, internationally renowned education scholar
and co-founder of connectionism and MOOCs, told the
journal, "... As far as I am concerned, the theory of
connectionism is learning network, which means that
learning is regarded as the formation process of
network...Since information exists in each node of the
learning network in the form of distributed knowledge
representation, we need to connect these nodes with a certain
structure, and form new knowledge through continuous
refinement, reconstruction and interpretation, so as to build a
technology-enhanced learning network in which people
share content. In my opinion, the theory of connectionism
originates from the knowledge philosophy of associationism
and is rooted in the connectionism theory of artificial
intelligence (connectionism) (Hu Yilin, Hu Xiaoqing, 2013).
In 2004, Professor George Siemens, another founder of
MOOCs, also gave an article about connectivism
"Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age"
(George Siemens, 2004). It points out, "…technology has
reorganized how we live, how we communicate, and how we
learn." In the Internet age, learning is no longer an individual
process, nor does knowledge stay in the classroom and books.
It exists everywhere around us. A website, a library and even
a book are all just nodes of knowledge. Through a certain
structure, this scattered knowledge can be united and
reorganized into new network connections to help learners
learn.
How can this idea be reflected in practical learning? In
the fall of 2008, Downes and Siemens launched a Mooc
Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK08) at the
university of Manitoba, which attracted nearly 2,200 students
(Hu Yilin and Gu Xiaoqing, 2013). The learning channel of
this course is the Internet, but it is not a single Internet, but a
convergent one: The teachers and students have built 170
blogs and integrated them through ss2 (rich website
summary) to make the website, discussion group and BBS
serve learners together.
In 2011, Professor Sebastian Thrun of Stanford
University and his colleagues opened the course
"Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" to the world,
attracting 160,000 learners from more than 190 countries,
and 23,000 people finally completed the course (Metz, 2013).
MOOCs have officially entered the public's vision, which
has ignited the enthusiasm of education circles, media and
investors.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard
University have co-founded edx, a non-profit open source
platform. So far, edx offers 175 online courses and has 48
university partners all world-class universities, including
Harvard University, MIT, University of California, Berkeley,
University of Queensland, Peking University and Tsinghua
University (edX, 2014).
In 2012, Andrew Ng, a professor of computer science at
Stanford University, founded the for-profit Coursera, with
early partnerships including Stanford, the University of
Michigan, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. By
July 2019, Coursera had 3,626 online courses to choose from
and 190 partners from 43 countries and regions around the
world (Coursera, 2019).
Subsequently, more and more institutions have entered
the field of MOOCs, such as Udemy and P2PU. Sir John
Daniel thinks that, "MOOCs are the educational buzzword of
2012" (Sir Daniel, 2012). New York Times reporter Laura
Pappano also wrote "The Year of the MOOC" in her article
(Pappano, 2012).
Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research, volume 94
955
Fig. 1. Development of MOOCs providers.
a. Data source: Li Yuan and Stephen Powell. JISC CETIS (2013). MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education. Retrieved from http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/2013/667
The overall development of MOOCs can be shown in
"Fig. 1".
B. The Characteristics of MOOCs
After several years of development, the types and
patterns of MOOCs have taken shape. Both professor
Downes and Sir Daniel divide them into two categories:
cMOOCs and xMOOCs. Based on the connectivism theory
of professor Downes, cMOOCs makes learning a process of
finding resources on the Internet and linking them to courses
(Hu Yiling, Gu Xiaoqing, 2013). Great differences as there
are whether in teaching philosophy, learning process, or
teaching methods, etc., now the public is used to using the
same term, MOOCs to refer to them. This paper focuses on
the discussion of xMOOCs, because compared with
cMOOCs it attracts more attention, involves more schools
and institutions, affects a wider range of learners, and thus
generates richer data.
To explore the characteristics of MOOCs and trace its
origin, it is important to start from the origin of its name,
which reflects its essence and connotation. MOOCs stands
for Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs), which means
Massive Open Online Courses, and "Massive", "Open" and
"Online" are its three major characteristics.
"Massive" means the scale of students is Massive and the
amount of data that's generated is Massive. As mentioned
above, the course "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" of
Thrun professor from Stanford University has attracted
160,000 learners, which is unimaginable in traditional
college education.
"Open" means that learning resources are open to all. For
professor Downes, open learning resources also mean free of
charge, that is, free access (Hu Yiling and Gu Xiaoqing,
2013). Not only are MOOCs open to everyone, they are also
free (though many MOOCs institutions now charge learners
a small fee to recognize credits or certifications). Meanwhile,
the openness of MOOCs is also reflected in the freedom of
learning. MOOCs are asynchronous approaches that do not
require learners to be in the same place at the same time.
Learners can freely choose the time and place to watch the
video, or even choose not to watch part of it, and can
formulate personalized learning methods based on their own
actual conditions.
"Online" means that the whole learning process, from
teaching to learning, is done over the Internet. In theory, as
long as a learner has a computer that can be connected to the
Internet, he or she can learn online, and that learning can be
interactive. On the Internet, learners can carry out various
discussions with teachers and classmates. All kinds of
MOOCs educational institutions will set up special areas for
learners to communicate with each other.
III. REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN CHINESE HIGHER
EDUCATION
The "Outline of the National Program for Medium- and
Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-
2020)" (2010) explicitly mentions "... To meet the needs of
national and regional economic and social development, a
dynamic adjustment mechanism should be established to
constantly optimize the structure of higher education... and
optimize the regional layout structure. It is necessary to set
up special funds to support local higher education, and
implement the plan to revitalize higher education in the
central and western regions. The new enrollment plan should
be geared toward areas in the central and western regions
where higher education resources are in short supply. Efforts
should be made to expand the enrollment of eastern
universities in the central and western regions, and increase
support for their counterparts in the western regions." It can
be seen that regional differences in higher education have
been existing and have a profound impact on the relevant
government decisions. The regional differences in higher
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956
education are mainly reflected in three aspects: the scale of
education, teachers and educational funds.
A. Scale of Education
The scale of regional higher education mainly includes
the number of universities and the number of college
students. According to "China Statistical Report 2018" and
Main Data of the Sixth National Census in 2010" (2011) and
other relevant data, the distribution of higher education in
China is uneven. In terms of the total number of regular
institutions of higher learning, there are 2,631 general
institutions of higher learning in China, among which
Jiangsu (167), Guangdong (151) and Shandong (145) have
the largest share. The three provinces with the smallest share
are Tibet (7), Qinghai (12) and Ningxia (19). In terms of the
number of college students, the top three are Shandong
(571,220), Guangdong (511,222) and Henan (504,119). The
three least populated provinces are Tibet (9,020), Qinghai
(14,661) and Ningxia (31,563). The eastern and southern
regions are far ahead of the western and northern regions.
As shown in "Fig. 2", in terms of the gross enrollment
rate of higher education, the eastern region is much higher
than the central and western regions, and the northeast region
is higher than the national level of 26.9%. Among them, the
gross enrollment rate of higher education in Shanghai,
Beijing and Tianjin all reaches above 60%. According to the
American sociologist Trow Martin about the theory of higher
education, if the gross enrollment rate of a country's school-
age youth into higher education does not reach 15%, it is in
an elitist period of higher education; if it exceeds 15% to
50%, it is in the massification period of higher education;
and, if it exceeds 50%, it is in the popularization period of
higher education. According to this theory, Shanghai,
Beijing and Tianjin have entered the stage of popularization
of higher education, while other regions are still in the stage
of massification of higher education. Therefore, in terms of
the scale of higher education, there are huge differences
between the eastern and western regions. China's high-
quality education resources are mainly concentrated in the
eastern regions, and the educational development level of the
western regions is still in a disadvantaged position.
Fig. 2. Gross enrollment rate of higher education in various regions of China in 2011.
a. Data source: National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China (2012). China Statistical Yearbook 2012. Beijing: China Statistics Press, 2012.
B. Teachers
The main indicators to measure the teacher resources in
regional colleges and universities include the number of staff
and teachers, the number of full-time teachers, and the
number of deputy senior teachers or above. According to the
"China Statistical Yearbook 2012", the eastern region was
significantly higher than other regions in these numbers, with
Jiangsu, Shandong, Guangdong and other eastern provinces
ranking high, while the western region ranked the lowest. In
addition, 39.81 percent of China's full-time teachers have
intermediate and senior professional titles, and the proportion
in the eastern and northeastern regions is higher than the
national level, while the proportion in the central and western
regions is lower than the national level. It can be seen that
the eastern region has the most advantages in terms of
teachers, followed by the northeast. Although Qinghai and
other cities are in good condition, the overall level of the
western region is not good.
C. Educational Funds
According to the "China Educational Finance Statistical
Yearbook 2012" (2013), there is a significant gap in
educational expenditure among regions in China. The data of
2011 shows that, Beijing ranked first with 76,586,700 yuan,
followed by Jiangsu (51,826,900 yuan), Guangdong
(42,076,400 yuan), Shanghai (390,774,200 yuan) and
Shandong (36,302,900 yuan). The top five are all in the
eastern region, and the level of educational investment in the
Heilongjiang
Liaoning
Ningxia
Gansu
Tibet
Guizhou
Chongqing
Inner Mongolia
Hubei
Jiangxi
Shanxi
Guangdong
Fujian
Jiangsu
Hebei
Beijing
Unit: %
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957
western region lags far behind the developed eastern
provinces. Taking Beijing at the top of the ranking and Tibet
at the bottom of the ranking as an example, the total amount
of higher education funds in Beijing is about 65 times that in
Tibet, which shows the gap between the investment of higher
education funds in the east and the west. From the
educational expenditure per student in higher education, it
can be seen that Beijing (65,806.78 yuan) and Shanghai
(48,807.71 yuan) still ranked first and second, ahead of other
provinces and cities.
On the basis of studying the above indexes of higher
education, the author holds that there are significant
differences among regions of higher education in China.
These differences are influenced and restricted by many
factors, such as regional economic development level,
natural geographical location, resource factors, policy factors,
cultural traditions and other factors, which will form regional
differences in higher education.
IV. MOOCS ARE A TOOL TO NARROW REGIONAL
DIFFERENCES IN CHINA'S HIGHER EDUCATION
The balanced development of education is the core
problem that needs to be solved urgently to realize the
healthy development of education and social equity and
justice in China. At present, promoting educational equality
through various information technology means has become
an important policy repeatedly emphasized by senior
decision-makers.
A. Information Technology Can Narrow Regional Gaps in
China's Higher Education
Although the "Outline of the national program for
medium- and long-term education reform and development
(2010-2020)" (2010) does not explicitly link information
technology with education equity, it proposes the
expressions like "to give full play to the role of modern
information technology so as to promote sharing of quality
teaching resources", "to focus on strengthening the
information infrastructure construction of rural schools so as
to narrow the digital gap between urban and rural areas", "to
establish an open and flexible public service platform for
educational resources and promote the popularization and
sharing of high-quality educational resources... to continue to
promote distance education for primary and secondary
schools in rural areas, so that teachers and students in rural
and remote areas can enjoy high-quality educational
resources", etc. In essence, the logic behind these similar
statements also emphasizes the sharing of high-quality
educational resources through information technology, thus
promoting the fair and balanced development of education.
With the development of China's economy, the
investment in education has increased significantly, and the
conditions for running schools have been greatly improved.
However, China's education development is still facing the
severe form of regional differences in education. The
unbalanced distribution of educational resources affects
educational equity and becomes one of the main problems
restricting the current educational development. The
continuous development of information technology
contributes to the increasingly in-depth integration of various
technologies and education. What can information
technology bring to education? Undoubtedly, it has become
an established policy to narrow regional differences in
education through information technology, which is widely
accepted by the government and scholars. A more
fundamental question is, can information technology really
narrow the regional differences in higher education and
achieve balanced development of education?
B. MOOCs Have a Positive Role in Closing Regional
Differences in Higher Education
Taking MOOCs as an example, it is not only the
application of new technology and means in the field of
education, but also brings new ideas to our educational
concept. As mentioned above, MOOCs can provide low-cost,
long-distance, and more flexible access to specialized
courses that were previously open to just an elite few on
university campuses. This reduces the influence of college
education scale, educatees' family economic status and other
factors on learners. The characteristics of online learning
break the regional limitations and make it possible to achieve
a balanced education. This paper attempts to discuss the
promoting role of MOOCs in narrowing regional differences
in higher education from the perspective of economy, the
concept of openness, high-quality learning resources and the
cultivation of teachers.
1) Economic perspective: If the hardware cost of
MOOCs learning is not taken into account, the learning cost
is very low. Many of today's MOOCs offer courses that are
free whether they're from Harvard or MIT. It is attractive
for learners to be able to study at a high level without
having to pay for the study, or even having to pay for extra
transportation. The rising cost of university tuition has put
off many students. In the United States, where the average
cost of a bachelor's degree is more than $100,000, the cost
of higher education has risen 360 percent since inflation
began in 1986 ( Archibald and Feldman, 2010). In his
inaugural address, David ruff, the new President of Yale
University, said, "The challenge of financial imbalance has
been with colleges and universities of our kind for some
time. Today, the fiscal challenge reaches a critical moment."
But "new educational technologies have the potential to
enable more individuals to learn the highest level of skills
and knowledge at minimal cost." (2012). Because learning
through MOOCs is free, students pay an additional fee
(about $150 per course) if they need to earn credits from
certain courses recognized by the relevant university.
Georgia tech is offering students a $7,000 master's degree in
udacity (Metz, 2013). MOOCs may reduce the huge cost of
higher education. The low cost of learning provides an
opportunity for more learners in economically
underdeveloped or underdeveloped regions to study and
give them a chance to enter "university". In fact, a large
proportion of MOOCs learners come from underdeveloped
or underdeveloped regions. Regalado mentioned this in an
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article in 2012, "Even though only a small fraction of those
will actually complete a class, the rise of the MOOCs means
we can begin thinking about how free, top-quality education
could change the world. Khan’s videos are popular in India,
and the MOOC purveyors have found that 60 percent of
their sign-ups are self-starters from knowledge-hungry
nations like Brazil and China."
2) The concept of openness:The openness of MOOCs is
at its core. On the one hand, it makes use of the Internet
technology to make the free transmission of course
information become a reality, which is not subject to the
constraints of time and the geographical intervals are broken.
Learners can take advantage of MOOCs to learn courses
from world-class universities even in remote areas. MOOCs,
on the other hand, have no requirements for learners. They
don't have any requirements for learners (such as exams),
age, gender, physical condition, etc. Taking China as an
example, the biggest obstacle in the learning process for
learners in many remote areas comes from geographical
barriers, especially for those in western regions and northern
regions. MOOCs are a big help for such learners, who can
get a higher education without leaving their homes.
3) High-quality educational resources: Good teachers
are an important part of a good university. For students who
want to receive higher education, excellent schools and
teachers are important pointers to choose a school, but only
a few people have the opportunity to enter a first-class
university and enjoy the guidance of excellent teachers. The
core of modern information technology is the low-cost
expansion of knowledge and innovation. MOOCs has
minimized the human cost, time cost, space cost,
transportation cost and a series of other costs, so that the
scarce resources can be allocated in a wider range and with
a higher allocation efficiency, and knowledge and
information can flow, spread and popularize rapidly in a
low-cost and efficient way. Therefore, today's public can
have access to the high-quality education resources that
were previously only available to a few nobles or elites,
narrowing the distance between the public and the elites
(Wang Mei, Xu Guangtao, Ren Youqun, 2014). In ancient
times, only emperors or nobles could employ the most
famous scholars as their teachers. The famous educator
Confucius had only 3,000 disciples. But today's students can
listen to world-class economists, historians, and physicists
through MOOCs, and a single course can attract thousands,
if not tens of thousands, of learners. For economically
underdeveloped regions, MOOCs means using the Internet
to promote the redistribution of excellent educational
resources and narrow the gap of education level with
developed regions. A survey by the Institute of Education
Tsinghua University proves this point, pointing out that less
than 40 percent of the 91 respondents came from
universities in the "985" and "211" projects, based on the
types of schools they attended. It is worth noting that
students from other undergraduate colleges have the highest
enthusiasm for MOOCs learning, accounting for more than
half of the effective applicants, and a very few (2) are from
higher vocational colleges. As far as the actual situation is
concerned, the number of students from universities in the
"985" and "211" projects with relatively rich teaching
resources who use MOOCs for learning is relatively small.
Even though the proportion of MOOCs learners in "985"
and "211" universities may be higher than that in other
undergraduate universities, the number of students
participating in MOOCs is still larger than that in other
undergraduate universities. (Liu Yang, Huang Zhenzhong,
Zhang Yu, Li Manli, 2013)
4) Cultivation of teachers: There are also teachers who
learn through MOOCs. The survey made by the Institute of
Education Tsinghua University also shows this, "Of the nine
teachers who answered this question, six came from
colleges and universities, three from the general education
level, and none from the preschool level. College and
university teachers account for two-thirds of the total, so it
can be seen that there is a strong demand for them to get
new research progress from MOOCs to update their
teaching content. From the perspective of teachers' teaching,
MOOCs can also promote the sharing of high-quality
educational resources and improve the teaching quality of
colleges and universities, and thus improve the learning
experience of college students." (Liu Yang et al., 2013)
V. CONCLUSION
To sum up, MOOCs, a new thing developed by virtue of
Internet technology, plays a positive role in closing regional
differences in China's higher education from the perspective
of economy, open universities, high-quality educational
resources and teacher cultivation.
At the same time, since information technology usually
brings high expectations, even educational technology
researchers admit that "during the history of educational
technology development, educational technology researchers
have made greater promises than they actually have" (Merrill
and Elen, 2014). What problems should arouse people's
vigilance in the process of practice? How to better realize the
original intention of using information technology like
MOOCs to really narrow regional differences in higher
education?
Firstly, according to Sir Daniel, one of the paradoxes of
MOOCs is that most educational institutions of MOOCs only
provide certificates to students who successfully pass the
course examination without giving credits (Daniel, 2012).
That is to say, the results obtained through MOOCs cannot
be effectively certified. If the supporting credit policy and
online education quality assurance policy can be gradually
developed and improved in the future, it is believed that
MOOCs will provide more ideas for the settlement of
regional differences in higher education.
Second, the completion rate of MOOCs is generally low.
According to the data provided by Sir Daniel, the learner
completion rate of MOOCs educational institutions is only
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10% or less (Daniel,2012), which means that it is difficult for
individuals to complete their studies independently. If
MOOCs is used to narrow the regional gap in higher
education, it becomes is an unavoidable problem how to help
learners to complete the course smoothly, so that the
completion rate reaches a relatively high level.
Finally, mastering information technology is only the
first step in the Internet age. What students from
economically underdeveloped regions and disadvantaged
groups do with information technology after they master it,
and whether there are differences between them and students
from economically developed regions in the use of
information technology, is the new focus of governments of
various countries when they use information technology to
promote education equity policy. On the one hand,
information technology can narrow regional differences in
education. On the other hand, information technology
exacerbates regional disparities in education, leading to the
"digital divide" (the gap in the ownership and use of modern
information technology between different social groups)
between the "information-rich" and the "information-poor".
Will the use of MOOCs to reduce regional differences in
education eventually lead to a widening of the gap? Of
course, it needs to be pointed out that the source of the
"digital divide" is not information technology, but the
replication and reproduction of the original social inequality
and educational inequality in the information age and
network society.
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Technical Report
Full-text available
This report sets out to help decision makers in higher education institutions gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) and trends towards greater openness in higher education and to think about the implications for their institutions. The phenomena of MOOCs are described, placing them in the wider context of open education, online learning and the changes that are currently taking place in higher education at a time of globalisation of education and constrained budgets. The report is written from a UK higher education perspective, but is largely informed by the developments in MOOCs from the USA and Canada. A literature review was undertaken focussing on the extensive reporting of MOOCs through scholarly blogs, press releases as well as openly available reports and research papers. This identified current debates about new course provision, the impact of changes in funding and the implications for greater openness in higher education. The theory of disruptive innovation is used to help form the questions of policy and strategy that higher education institutions need to address.
Book
Distance education (DE) offers ways to reach the many people around the world who lack access to education and training by other means. International DE methods, however, are fragmented, and distance educators have often abandoned new technologies before giving them a chance to develop. As a result, many current DE tools and techniques are incompatible with the needs and cultures of different global regions. With the goal of designing efficient, relevant DE for worldwide audiences, Harmonizing Global Education invites scholars and practitioners to consider the historic development of technology-based education and communication studies, going back further in the literature than is often assumed necessary.
Book
College tuition has risen more rapidly than the overall inflation rate for much of the past century. Over the last thirty years, tuition growth has accelerated. The rhetoric of crisis now permeates public discussion of the cost of attendance. Much of what is written about colleges and universities ties rapidly rising tuition to dysfunctional behavior in the academy. Common targets of dysfunction include prestige games among universities, gold plated amenities, and bloated administration. This book offers a different view. To explain rising college cost, the authors place the higher education industry firmly within the larger economic history of the United States. The trajectory of college cost is similar to cost behavior in many other industries, and this is no coincidence. Higher education is a personal service that relies on highly educated labor. A technological trio of broad economic forces has come together in the last thirty years to cause higher education costs, and costs in many other industries, to rise much more rapidly than the inflation rate. The main culprit is economic growth itself. This finding does not mean that all is well in American higher education. A college education has become less reachable to a broad swathe of the American public at the same time that the market demand for highly educated people has soared. This affordability problem has deep roots. The authors explore how cost pressure, the changing wage structure of the US economy, and the complexity of financial aid policy combine to reduce access to higher education below what we need in the 21st century labor market. This book is a call to calm the rhetoric of blame and to find instead policies that will increase access to higher education while preserving the quality of our colleges and universities. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780199744503/toc.html
Promoting Equity in Education Through ICT: A Double Edged Sword? Global Education
  • Wang Mei
  • Xu Guangtao
  • Ren Youqun
Wang Mei, Xu Guangtao, Ren Youqun. Promoting Equity in Education Through ICT: A Double Edged Sword? Global Education. 2014: 2, 39-48. (in Chinese)
Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China
National Bureau of Statistics, Department of Finance, Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Statistics Department of Social Science, Technology and Cultural Industry (2013). China Educational Finance Statistical Yearbook 2012. Beijing: China Statistics Press, 2013. (in Chinese)
On the development strategy of regional higher education in China
  • Li Ling
Li Ling. On the development strategy of regional higher education in China. Journal of Higher Education, 1994, 04. (in Chinese)