编辑点评：关于在线网络教育的未来，大家众说纷纭。有人悲观的预测在线教育将会演变成一种商业活动；也有人乐观的以为，在线教育的发展有助于降低高等教育的成本。究竟怎么回事，看看那些在线教育前线的人是怎么说的吧~
An army of new online courses is scaring the wits out of traditional universities. But can they find a viable business model?浩浩荡荡的新型网络课程对传统大学造成了不小的威胁，它能发展出可行的商业模式吗？
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.网络狂热在教育界一直波澜不兴，不过最近网络已征服这一神圣的行业。随着去年上半年硅谷两家新秀Udacity和Coursera通过MOOC（大规模网络公开课平台）开通免费在线课程，象牙塔内学术权威的地位遭到了动摇。几个世纪以来声名远扬的大学也开始心里打鼓，担心信息技术会很快造成其现行商业模式过时。另外，在没有自身商业模式的情况下，MOOC在数量、资源和招生人数上已翻了好几番。
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.除了为本学校的学生提供在线课程外（通常情况下须付费），各个大学觉得自己有义务加入MOOC变革的阵营，从而避免被逼上绝路。Coursera已经与来自世界各地的83所大学建立合作关系，其中包括美国的不少顶尖学府。
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.EdX是一家非盈利性MOOC供应商，由哈佛大学和麻省理工学院出资6000美元于2012年5月成立。如今它已发展成包括28个学校在内的联合体，最新成员是印度孟买的技术学院。开放式大学是上世纪90年代远程教育的先驱，在其带领下由21所英国大学、一所爱尔兰大学和一所澳大利亚大学组成的FutureLearn将于今年下半年开始提供开放式课程。但是牛津和剑桥仍然敬而远之，剑桥的一位权威人士称，他们不想&趋之若鹜&。
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. &It is somewhat entertaining to watch the number of people jumping on board,& says Daphne Koller, a Stanford professor and co-founder of Coursera. She expects it to become one of a &very small number of dominant players&.7月10日Coursera发布消息，在去年2200万美元存款的基础上，它又通过风投募集到4300万美元。它的招生人数也突飞猛进，如今已突破400万，这也使得投资者信心猛增，认为该公司能够发展出可行的商业模式。Coursera可以借助这笔新款项，充分发挥任何一个有利条件，在迅速增加的MOOC供应商中抢占先机。斯坦福大学教授、Coursera创始人之一的Daphne Koller说，看到越来越多的人参与进来可谓乐在其中。她希望Coursera成为凤毛麟角的主导型玩家。
The industry has similar network economics to Amazon, eBay and Google, says Ms Koller, 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.Daphne Koller称这一行业与亚马逊、易贝和谷歌等网购经济类似，共同点在于&供应商逐消费者而居，消费者逐产品而居&。不过FutureLearn的首席执行官Simon Nelson不认同这一观点。他认为&如果有人认为网络课程的游戏规则已被现存行业总结出来，那他就大大低估了网络技术的潜力&。
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.自然，适用的商业模式还需要大量实验。网络课程是免费的，不过幕后经营者认为并不缺乏赚钱的机会。Coursera已开始向修完全部课程并需要证明材料（日后找工作时或许用得上）的学员提供收费证书。还有些大学想要充实现行课程，Coursera就为其课程教材颁发许可证。不过Coursera暂时不与公司合作招聘网络课程学员，Daphne Koller解释说，雇主对雇员的要求千差万别，&没有可缩放的模型&来满足他们的不同要求。
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.与之相反，Udacity的核心商业模式就是与公司合作，培训现任和未来的职员。它与若干公司建立了联系，其中包括谷歌。最近它与AT&T和乔治亚理工大学建立了合作关系，提供计算机科学专业的硕士学位。课程教材是免费的，不过学员要支付约7000美元的学费。EdX则采取另一种套路，它将MOOC技术卖给斯坦福等大学，这样既能开设自己的MOOC网络课程，又能通过充实现行教学增强实体大学的吸引力。
This lecture is brought to you by&这堂课来自&&
Alison, an Irish provider of free, mostly vocational education founded in 2007, before MOOCs got their name, is generating plenty of revenue by selling advertising on its site. &Ads propelled radio and TV, why not education? There is a lot of misplaced snobbery in education about advertising,& says Mike Feerick, Alison&s founder.爱尔兰网络课程（多为职业教育）供应商Alison成立于2007年，那时MOOC尚未得名。Alison通过在网站上展播广告赚得盆满钵满。Alison创始人Mike Feerick称，&广告促进了广播和电视的发展，教育为何不能分一杯羹呢？教育不该对广告摆臭架子&。
Another important category of MOOC providers are publishers, says Rob Lytle of the Parthenon Group, a consultancy. He says firms like Pearson (part-owner of The Economist) that run educational businesses such as textbook-publishing may thrive by offering free MOOCs as a way to get people to buy their related paid content.咨询机构Parthenon集团的Rob Lytle说，MOOC供应商的另一种重要类别是出版商。他说经营教育类业务（如出版教材）、类似Pearson（持有《经济学人》部分股权）这样的公司，通过提供网络课程，促使消费者购买相关教材，一定会蓬勃发展。
Besides the uncertainty over which business model, if any, will produce profits, there is disagreement over how big the market will be. Some see a zero- or negative-sum game, in which cheap online providers radically reduce the cost of higher education and drive many traditional institutions to the wall. Others believe this effect will be dwarfed by the dramatic increase in access to higher education that the MOOCs will bring.就算找到合适的商业模式顺利盈利，这一市场的规模大小仍然存在争议。有些人认为会出现零和甚至负和的局面，廉价的网课造成高等教育成本跳楼，将很多传统大学逼到绝路。其他人则认为MOOC会显著拓展接受高等教育的途径，这样一来负面影响就不值一提。
Mr Feerick predicts that the market will be commoditised, spelling trouble for many institutions. But Anant Agarwal, the boss of EdX, reckons the MOOC providers will be more like online airline-booking services, expanding the market by improving the customer experience. Sebastian Thrun, Udacity&s co-founder, thinks the effect will be similar in magnitude to what the creation of cinema did to demand for staged fiction: he predicts a tenfold increase in the market for higher education.Feerick预测这一市场将被商品化，使很多大学陷入被动。不过EdX的老板Anant Agarwal认为，MOOC的供应商就像网络机票预订服务一样，通过改善用户体验来拓展市场。Udacity的联合创始人Sebastian Thrun则认为网络课程的作用就像电影院对舞台剧的影响一样，他预测高等教育市场的规模将扩大十倍。
Sceptics point to the MOOCs& high drop-out rates, which in some cases exceed 90%. But Coursera and Udacity both insist that this reflects the different expectations of consumers of free products, who can browse costlessly. Both firms have now studied drop-out rates for those students who start with the stated intention of finishing, and found that the vast majority of them complete the courses.怀疑派指出MOOC提高了辍学率，在一些案例中甚至超过90%。不过Coursera和Udacity都坚持这种情况反映了消费者对免费产品的不同预期，他们可以分文不花浏览相关课程。根据学员的修课意向，两家公司在课程伊始就跟踪调查学员的退学率，结果他们发现绝大多数学员修满了课程。
Besides LearnCapital, a Silicon Valley venture firm, and the World Bank&s International Finance Corporation, the participants in Coursera&s $43m fund-raising included Laureate, an operator of for-profit universities. Doug Becker, its boss, reckons that many established universities will soon offer credits towards their degrees for those who complete MOOCs. He thinks this will drive a dramatic reduction in the price of a traditional higher education, that will reduce the total revenues of existing providers by far more than the revenue gained by the start-ups. Still, if MOOCs reduce the cost of higher education by one-third, as he predicts, yet only earn for themselves 1% of that benefit, that would &still be a very nice business,& he says.除了硅谷投机公司LearnCapital和世界银行国际金融公司，Coursera公司4300万美元的出资方还包括盈利性大学经营商Laureate。Laureate的老板Doug Becker认为很多现有大学会很快向修完MOOC的学员提供学分，从而取得该学校的学位。他还认为这将大大降低传统高等教育的学费，进而降低现行供应商和新秀供应商的总利润，不过新老供应商的利润下滑程度可谓小巫见大巫。Doug Becker预测即便如此，假如MOOC高等教育成本降低三分之一，只为自身获得1%的利益，那&仍是一笔不错的买卖&。
【注释】大型开放式网络课程，即MOOC（massive open online courses）。2012年，美国的顶尖大学陆续设立网络学习平台，在网上提供免费课程，Coursera、Udacity、edX三大课程提供商的兴起，给更多学生提供了系统学习的可能。累计代理商数:
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