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MOOCS AS A PART OF LIFELONG EDUCATION
S. D. Kalinina
On the 9th of October, 1930, Spanish philosopher Hose Ortega y Gasset gave a lecture at the request of The Federation of University students of Madrid. This lecture was published as ‘The University Mission’ later. Thinking about the idea of a University, he said: ‘People faced with the pressing and urgent problem: it is necessary to invent technology of adequate treatment with a mountain of knowledge, which he has. If a man does not think of how to cope with this irrepressible growth of knowledge, he will be crushed’ [1]. Outstanding thinkers tend to put issues before the society that were not only relevant in their time, but has not lost its relevance in the future. This is what happened with the phrase Ortega y Gasset - about ten years e-stage in the development of information processing technologies began and avalanche growth of information flows has led the society to a information stage of development. How can mankind to cope with the volume of information? Two important directions of human development: improvement of information processing technologies and change of approach to the education of man - the emergence of the concepts of ‘lifelong education’ or ‘education for life’ became the answer to this question.
However, the implementation of lifelong education get a few problems, such as the remoteness of educational institutions from someone wishing to continue their education; the inability to stop work for the period of training; the presence of problems with physical health, which does not allow him to study in the traditional form. There are objective factors preventing lifelong education for some groups: for example, women who are on child rearing leave; armed forces personnel and so on. So the distance learning comes to the forefront. The history of distance learning shows a clear division into universities offering distance learning and universities offering traditional training. The increased use of information technologies in higher education made the situation change. Modern distance learning technologies started to penetrate the traditional training.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are one of the variants of application of distance education technologies for the implement any forms of lifelong education. On 2013, three Russian universities - Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, St. Petersburg State University and National Research University Higher School of Economics - had become partners of Coursera [2]. The news that online courses by Russian universities will be available through the internationally-known Coursera educational system failed to get the attention it deserved in the Russian higher education community. Yet this event is a turning point in the perception of distance learning by the elite Russian universities. Three of the Russian ‘Ivy League’ universities have joined international educational processes that involve the availability of distance learning. Coursera.org is a well-known online education project that has been in existence since October 2011 and currently offers 626 courses from 108 universities [4]. The project was initially launched by Stanford University professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng. The overwhelming majority of the courses is taught in English, but there are also courses available in
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French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc. The tuition is free of charge, but the Coursera business model provides for monetization either via sales of university-branded certificates (the initial scheme is that certificates do not bear the name of the university and are signed by a lecturer), or via testing with identity verification; paid-for tuition can also be made available to university students. In the period from January to September 2013 the project generated $1,000,000 through fees for validated certificates paid by students of online courses [5]. According to Coursera, as of the end of October 2013 Russian students accounted for 2 per cent of Coursera students (Russia comes roughly ninth or tenth alongside Australia). The biggest audience is from the United States (roughly 31%) to be followed by India, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada, Spain, China, and Mexico. To increase the number of Russian students, in collaboration with the Russian Digital October centre, Coursera offered Russian-language translations of courses traditionally available in English. The first course to have subtitles in Russian, the more well-known Gamification course by the University of Pennsylvania was launched on the 27th of January, 2014 [2].
What made elite universities turn to distance learning? Probably with regard to both the Russian and the Western ‘Ivy Leagues’ there might be several reasons for this.
First, it is a sense of rivalry among universities for wooing students. Today prospective applicants may choose any university in the world, as the language barrier is no longer an obstacle for them, and most top universities are offering courses in English. Mr. A. Auzan, Head of the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University in his interview to POLIT.RU said that ‘now nearly every school leaver ... goes on to university. Yet there are countries with even a higher index if compared to that in Russia, and what we are witnessing in the early 21st century is accessibility of higher education to almost every citizen of a developed country. On the one hand, the students level is getting undoubtedly lower. It is Chinese, Indian and other students from countries where admission rate to universities amounts to 10 against 80 per cent rather than local students who help world top universities retain their leading position. It is this minority that sets educational standards, thus it is rivalry among universities to woo the smartest students. Now the competition is not about inviting the internationally acclaimed, distinguished Professor but rather about attracting the Student as it is the student that is to meet the university requirements. The local students prove unable to do that. They see University as just another year in high school’ [6]. So, online courses by ‘Ivy League’ universities enable a smart and highly committed school leaver to overcome the frustration caused by tough competition to enter a big-name university and build confidence to apply to Stanford, Harvard, Higher School of Economics or Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. It is Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) whatever the distance learning project.
Second, it is providing for a university’s global leadership in research and teaching. Several years ago Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) initiated the practice of uploading course materials to the Internet. Susan Hockfield, MIT President, explains, ‘What are we doing this for? We do this with an aim of securing the MIT world leadership in education’ [9]. Surely, accessibility of free of charge
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leading universities’ course materials can make the latter the bulk and even the essence of syllabi of other universities.
The third reason was well articulated by Professor Erwin Heberle, who taught at Humboldt University, Berlin, University of San Francisco and University of Geneva. His view is that ‘it is only one who gives knowledge for free that may eventually expect to be well paid for it’ [9]. Indeed, online courses by world top universities attract an audience of millions. Yet the courses are completed by much fewer students. Despite this, when the time comes for getting the certificate, with regard to monetization, even a low-priced certificate gets the university revenue. Uploading online courses by renowned universities is not only an ‘exploratory attack’ method which gives an answer to the question of whether full-scale distance learning is well worth investing into. It is a form of competition in the world higher education market as well.
UNESCO suggests making it possible for any person and anywhere to study the program of any College or University that is an implementation of the right of every person to equal access to information and education. Massive Open Online Courses are one of such possibilities. The versatility of these distance learning courses allows to use them in any form of implementation of lifelong education. So, MOOCs offered by world top universities is a blessing to both universities and students. Moreover, it is highly beneficial to society at large as it serves a truly humane end - to enable a person to gain knowledge and acquire skills irrespective of age, location, physical well-being and a whole bunch of other factors that might considerably impede or even prevent the realization of one’s potential.
References
I.Ortega y Gasset, J. The University Mission. - М.: Publishing House of the Higher School of Economics, 2010.
2. Coursera announces courses available in Russian [Electronic source] / Mode of Access: http://lenta.ru/news/2013/10/24/coursera/. Date of Access: April, 6, 2014.
3. St. Petersburg State University and Coursera, Inc. Reach Agreement on Co-operation [Electronic source] / Mode of Access: http://spbu.ru/news-spsu/18926/-spbgu-i-coursera-inc-dogovarivayutsya-o-sotrudnichestve. Date of Access: April, 6, 2014.
4. The Coursera Official Web Site [Electronic source] / Mode of Access: https://www.coursera.org. Date of Access: April, 6, 2014.
5. A milestone for Signature Track, Certificates for the life-long learner [Electronic source] / Mode of Access: http://blog.coursera.org/post/61047298750/a-milestone-for-signature-track-certificates-for-the-life-long-learner. Date of Access: April, 6, 2014.
6. Auzan, A. The University Mission: an economic perspective [Electronic source] / Mode of Access: http://polit.ru/article/2013/05/07/auzan. Date of Access: April, 6, 2014.
7. Golubitsky, S. MOOC in the Education of Tomorrow: pros and cons. [Electronic source] /
Mode of Access: http://www.computerra.ru/92998/mooc-kak-budushhee-obrasovatelnogo-
protsessa-za-i-protiv/. Date of Access: April, 6, 2014.
8. Malykhin, M. US Gains Upper Hand in Rivalry for Students [Electronic source] / Mode of Access: http://www.vedomosti.ru/career/news/117540741/vovremya-ne-vyshli-na-
distanciyu?full#cut. Date of Access: April, 6, 2014.
9.Sumlenniy, S. The Future Ten Universities // Published in: The Expert, 2013, Issue 48. [Electronic source] / Mode of Access: http://expert.ru/expert/2013/48/ostanetsya-desyat-
universitetov. Date of Access: April, 6, 2014.
Translated from Russian by the Author
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