MOOCs 革命:独立课程市场形成和高等教育世界市场新格局

MOOCs Revolution：The Emergence of Independent Course Markets and the New World Higher

本研究运用新制度经济学的企业边界理论和信息经济学,创建了基于课程认证的课程市场与大学(内部课程供给)的替代关系理论,预测了课程市场的出现。2012 年是高等教育的MOOCs(Massive Open Online Courses)年。MOOCs 的兴起形成课程市场,挑战以大学为轴心的课程打包出售的学历学位市场。MOOCs 除了是公认的网络课程以外,还正在发展出MOOCs 内核教学模式,最受学生欢迎,最有发展潜力,奠定了MOOCs进入主流高等教育市场的教学模式基础。MOOCs 的真谛是形成一个进入高等教育学位市场的独立课程市场,形成课程层面的教育认证体系,蚕食大学按学位打包出售给学生的内部课程市场,大学进入“ 瘦身冶,进而“ 空壳冶化阶段。MOOCs 课程将冲击中国的大学,迅速淘汰劣质课程,更新和提升课程,短期内对中国高等教育质量提升的作用就将远远超过多少年的高等教育质量工程。建议国家提供资助,推出大学生免费选修MOOCs 课程的高等教育发展战略。MOOCs 给农民工教育带来新契机,建议面向农民工推出免费的大专层次课程,课程学分积累到规定数额可以获得相关专业的大专文凭。MOOCs 课程市场的技术基础互联网的世界性决定了MOOCs 课程市场的世界性。中国学生对来自国外的MOOCs 课程有极大兴趣,威胁中国来源的课。MOOCs 课程的世界市场也给中国带来把源于中国的课程和学位项目大规模地推向世界的机会。

Applying the neo-institution economics’ theory of the boundary of firms and information economics,we have developed a theory of the substitution effect of course markets supported by course accreditation systems to universities,which allows us to predict the emergence of course markets sooner or later. 2012 is the year of MOOCs ( Massive Open Online Courses) in higher education,which gives evidence of how powerful theories can be in prediction. This paper will focus on MOOCs for further development of our theory of the boundary of universities. The burgeoning of MOOCs is creating course markets which are to challenge the universities’internal course markets in which course are packaged in degree programs. MOOCs are commonly considered as a type of online courses,yet a more important type of MOOCs is emerging that is MOOCs-Inside Courses (MICS). MICS is a hybrid of MOOCs and local instructors involved courses that more students like and have the best potential to grow,and lays the basis for MOOCs to become main stream in higher education. The significance of MOOCs Revolution is its creation of course markets independent of universities,its shaping of course accreditation systems,its opening of the door for universities to recognize the credits students earn from taking MOOCs offered by course providers other than the institutions of their registration for degrees,which will replace more and more universities’internal course markets,and cause universities getting into a stage of becoming “thinner” and even “hollowed” in the near future. MOOCs will also give China’s universities a vibrant disturbance,swiftly wiping away the low quality courses and creating new and better ones,which will upgrade China’s higher education quality that can not be achieved for many years called by the governments. Our policy recommendation is that the governments boost MOOCs including providing sufficient finance so that all the university students can take MOOCs for free. MOOCs also provides a best solution for massive migrant workers’education. We suggest that the governments provide funding so that migrant workers can also take free MOOCs and get degrees once they have accumulated enough course credits. The technical basis of MOOCs is the Internet which rules that MOOCs market must be a world-wide one. Chinese university students are very much interested in foreign-originated MOOCs that will take an alarmingly big share of the MOOCs markets in China. MOOCs also provides very good opportunities for China to promote China-Originated courses and degrees to the world.