Eleven top universities are joining the Open University to launch free Internet courses. King’s College London, along with the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, East Anglia, Exeter, Lancaster, Leeds, Southampton, St Andrews and Warwick, has partnered with FutureLearn, a company set up by the Open University that will offer free and non-credit bearing courses to Internet-users around the world.
The courses are modeled on the US phenomenon “Massive open online courses” ( Moocs ), which have attracted millions of users around the world and are especially popular in emerging economies.
FutureLearn will improve UK institutions for international students, said Prof Martin Bean, voice-chancellor of the Open University. “At the moment, foreign students’ perception of UK Universities is: wonderful history, great tradition, really good teaching, but a bit boring.”
Leeds University says the partnership will benefit students studying on campus. “Students will have access to a rich set of resources from both Leeds and our partners. They can also broaden their education beyond their main subject areas.”
The UK higher education industry stands among the top five export earners for Britain Moocs have grown rapidly in the US over the past year, with two providers leading the field. Coursera offers courses from 33 Universities, including Princeton, Brown, Columbia and Duke, and has reached more than 1.7 million users, EdX, a nonprofit start-up from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology courses this autumn.
Simon Nelson, one of the key architects of BBC Online, will head FutureLearn as launch CEO. “It’s really meaningful for these universities to come together –we’ll punch much harder collectively than any other university will individually,” he said.
Partner Institutions will be responsible for their own content while the OU, which has been providing distance-learning courses since 1971, will assist with course delivery and infrastructure. Details of further universities will be revealed next year, as will the courses on offer.
小题1: What does the underlined word “perception” in paragrah3 mean?
A．expectation
B．view
C．dream
D．proposal小题2: We can learn from the passage that
A．Coursera, one of the two providers, leads the online courses in the US.
B．Economics is the most popular subject among these online courses.
C．FutureLearn is only set up for the Internet-users.
D．About 1,7million users are taking the free courses launched by UK.小题3:What is implied in Simon’s words?
A．It’s really meaningful for these universities to cooperate.
B．Single university can’t do the work very well.
C．These universities will compete with each other.
D．Joint efforts by these top universities will help the program go more smoothly.小题4:All of the following statements are true except
A．Internet-users don’t need to get credit for the courses.
B．UK may top the list of online education one day.
C．The UK higher education industry stands among the top five export earners for England.
D．Some foreign students may think UK universities are not so satisfying.小题5: In which magazine would you most likely find this passage?
A．Entertainment
B．Science
C．Education
D．Business Week