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.
1. What does the underlined word “perception” in
paragrah3 mean?
A．expectation B．view C．dream D．proposal
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.
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.
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.
5. In which magazine would you most likely find this
passage?
A．Entertainment B．Science C．Education D．Business Week
