在线教育的全球化和发展趋势的战略性分析.doc

教育信息技术学院2000级 李万新 002814325英文原文在下面在线教育的全球化和发展策略分析摘要本文是“在线教育的全球化和发展策略分析”的150 页报告的一个摘要。报告讨论了在线教育的全球化、机构设置和管理的重要性。它进一步报告了在线教育的推广和资金问题,还从教育学角度分析了在线教育的资格鉴定、注册、评价和适应能力。分析了在线教育的发展趋势和障碍。最后，为政府官员、教育管理者和在线教育工作者提供战略性的建议。介绍本文引进了一项国际互联网上的课程的分析，这为在线教育起了推荐的作用。结果和讨论都建立在26个国家的130家机构的项目的目录的文献和72位这些机构的关键人物的采访的基础上。这些文献数据是从98年的三月收据到99年的二月，而采访是在1999年的春天进行的。这个研究是由CISAER(/alle/in_english/cisaer)计划引导下进行的，这个计划由欧洲的Leonardo da Vinci计划提供。这计划的目的是提供一个对网络课程全面的、富有艺术性的专业的分析，这将会为欧盟职业的教育和训练的领域提供一种新的稳定的评价尺度和长远的建议的标准。全球的问题CISAER目录包括来自各个大陆的机构的研究项目，加上四个跨国机构的，还包括26个国家机构研究的项目。必须有一个代表机构是来自英语作为官方语言的国家，因为英文是主要的研究语言。来自北美项目是相当简单的，因为来自这一地区的项目是有意不全面的。在这130个项目的目录里，45.4%是来自英语国家：美国、英国、澳大利亚、加拿大和爱尔兰。这个调查表明欧洲（60.8%）、北美的（21.5%）、和澳大利亚跟新西兰的（7.7%）的机构压倒性的超过南美的（3.1%）、亚洲的（3.1%）、非洲的（0.8%）机构。而且欧洲的、北美的和澳大利亚的研究者比其他地区的有更丰富的知识，这表明了这些大陆是完全支持基于网络的教育。其他国家的为学生提供网络课程的机构和国际协作和思维的分析的案例也在稳步的增加。无论如何，大部分的全球的计划已经在试验并主动向目标迈进。机构的问题许多机构几乎没有提供什么网络课程，据报告，有23.1%的机构只有一门网络课程，46.2%的机构提供了少于五门的课程。只有四家有100门或100以上的课程。从这里可以看出，许多活动是实验而这不是机构的关键。这调查也显示了29.3%的机构据报告只有100名或更少的学生。只有四家机构有超过5000名的学生。这些低入学率的机构表明基于网络学习的介绍不是这些机构的关键。有一点是可以推断的是在网络课程在计算机和信息技术科学和还是有一些优势。除了以上两点，网络课程还适用一个很广泛的范围。能提供的科目的数目是很多的在这些机构中。几乎一半的机构提供的课程只是一种，只有五家机构提供五门或更多。在被调查的机构中没有一家提供足够的直线课程和提供能表现它们是虚拟的或直线的大学。调查显示130家机构中的60.0%属于综合大学和学院部门，10%属于传统的开放大学和远程教育部门，9.2%是公司的。管理问题一个管理系统能够易于处理学生、老师、课程和教材的关系。一个在线大学能够通过要求密码的网页、讨论区、分类清单、花名册、学生的表达来处理几千个学生、几百个老师和许多的课程。还可以用管理系统来分发课本、处理学费、考试费和测试机构。这服务使传统的制度受到很大的挑战。这些机构要提供大型的和专业的在线教育，就需要一个完善的管理系统和网页。要做到这一点，这些机构要做到以下几个策略。最简单的就是与已经拥用功能完善的管理系统的机构合作。另一个方法，则需要一定的技术能力，就是开发一个基于普通的互联网服务的内部系统。第三中方法是购买一个标准的在线教育管理系统。这些标准系统是不断提高的，但也要自己对它进行改进。它们只有适应管理的需要，才能打破在课程中的教育学的局限性。一个很令人丧气而又很重要的报告是很多机构不是用网页来进行管理。购买是一个看起来不是很习惯的选择，只是一种确定的建议。许多已经用互联网上的标准软件开发出自己的内部管理解决方案。标准的管理系统曾经在采访FirstClass, WebCT和Lotus Notes时提到过。推广和资金问题为计划和课程做推广是网络服务的很重要的功能在很多的采访中被提到过。网上学习的学费在机构和课程之间看起来是变化很大的。一些课程是免费对每个人开放的，而另一些则是全部或部分收费的。这些要交学费的机构的运行好像跟传统的教育没有什么不同的。但分析显示很少有能从学生那里得到固定的收入的。同样地，如果他们忽视外部的研究和发展的要求，也很少能通过基于网络的教育在经济上取得成功的。教学问题在线辅导的好像都是忙于在线教学的兼职教师，其实，全职的教师也可以从事网络教学，观察这种老师和学生不在同一地方一起进行教学也是很有意思的。采访分析显示在线辅导至少有以下几个功能：组织功能：组织讨论、同步进行传授。社会功能：监督小组学习。智力功能：回答问题、在互联网引导学生学习。评价功能：反馈学生的问题、纠正学生的错误。人类的学习好像比机械学习简单，但是一些机构包括了机械学习和人类的学习。大部分的机构是结合了自主学习和协作学习。两种学习的核心是完全不同的。在线学结合了面对面学习、视频&音频学习和电话接触的优点。一些机构都有完整的课程组；但另一些却只有单一的在线教程。不同的模式都有自己的质量控制和发展时间。资格鉴定采访分析显示在线课程的鉴定制度跟传统的鉴定制度是差不多的。学位、文凭、证书和毕业声明都被广泛的应用。资格鉴定好像是不受在线教育提供课程和科目安排的约束。许多的机构基本上声明鉴定机构跟大学一样的。资格鉴定是一个很重要的竞争优势，许多重要的策略都是用来达到这个目的的。跟外国的机构合作就能够拥有两个不同的资格鉴定。评价在线教育的评价看起来是传统的，经常是面对面进行，同时，新的标准化的基于网络活动的评价正在试验。大部分的机构为一门课程提供几种评价方法。在线评价在当面的评价中是最普通的。会面提供了很多自我评价的机会，但也意味着计算机评价有一些不足。无论如何，在线评价做了很多的探索，多选择的测试，许多交互式的练习。采访分析显示着单一的评价是有不足的。采访也显示一些课程没有简单的评价，因为它们是没有老师的自学的课程。注册和发展的适应性采访证实团体注册比个人注册好。这是由46个团体注册的机构模式、个人注册模式再加上各种模式的比较得出的。占优势的团体模式是从传统学期体系教育发展而来的。另外的一个可能的理由是机构协作的学习是难用个别的登记达到理解。另一有可能的考虑的是很多学生更看重个人的适应性，而一些机构缺乏个人注册的系统、组织和能力。如果这样的话，可以猜测的是开放大学和远程教育机构比传统的教育更能发展个人的社会适应性。但是，分析没有根据证明这一猜想。未来的发展对在线教育有兴趣的人是很多的，这看起来迅速发展和全球化的趋势。加拿大的竞争(www.telelearn.ca/g_access/news/comp_analysis.pdf)显示重要的发展策略是开发更多样化的课程，争取国际化的学生，社团培训那样的新的好的市场。CISAER的被采访者预见今后会有更多的网络课程，更多的网络服务，更高质量的课程，而且将会集中在教师的培训，机构之间的协作也会更深，组织的的重要性加重。发展的阻碍在在线教育取得大的突破之前，很多障碍会被解决的。资金问题、阻力的改变、带宽的限制、通路的限制、搜索工具的不足、版权问题、在线评价的阻碍都是阻碍在线教育发展的问题。财政问题是最重要的。分析限制很少的机构从学生身上取得固定的收入。同时，发展的经费和开支都很高。加上，在许多国家制度限制机构收取辅导费。采访证明很多的障碍影响在线学习的评价。它们有公开的制度、物质条件的限制、技术限制、学生的鉴定和数字材料抄袭。策略最后，报告为政府官员、教育管理者、在线教育工作者提出了八点建议：1、 提升国内和国际学位和证书颁发的统一、促进在线学习者的灵活性。2、 取消机构不能收费的政策。3、 集中费用提高在线教育的效率。4、 开发在线教育的管理系统。5、 主动提供在线教育教师、管理者、教育设计者的培训。6、 改变在线教育评价的制度和态度。7、 提供深入在线教育的研究。8、 发展和贯彻减少在线教育的工作量的策略。An International Analysis of Web-based Education and Strategic Recommendations for Future Development of Online EducationMorten Flate PaulsenAbstractThis paper presents an abstract of the 150 pages report: An International Analysis of Web-based Education and Strategic Recommendations for Future Development of Online Education. The report discusses global, institutional, and administrative issues of importance to online education. It further reports on advertising and financial issue, it analyzes pedagogical issues along with accreditation, assessment, enrollment, and progress flexibility. Future development and barriers to online education are discussed. Finally, strategic recommendations for politicians, educational administrators, and online educators are provided.IntroductionThis paper presents an international analysis of courses on the Internet, and it provides strategic recommendations about issues of importance to online education. The results and discussions are based on literature reviews, catalogue entries submitted by 130 institutions in 26 countries, and 72 interviews with key persons at these institutions. The catalogue data were collected from March 98 to February 99 and the interviews were conducted in the spring of 1999.The research has been conducted within the CISAER (/alle/in_english/cisaer) project which is supported by the European Leonardo da Vinci program. The project aims to provide a comprehensive, state-of-the-art survey of course provision on the web with professional analysis, balanced evaluation and far-reaching recommendations which will provide the field of vocational education and training in the EU with a tool for dealing with this new training dimension.Global IssuesThe CISAER catalogue includes entries from institutions in all continents. In addition to four transnational institutions, the catalogue includes entries from institutions in 26 countries. It is likely that there is an overrepresentation of institution from countries that have English as an official language since the primary research language was English. Still, it would be quite easy to include many more entries from North America, since the listing from this area is intentionally partial. Among the 130 catalogue entries, 45.4% were from the English language countries: USA, UK, Australia, Canada, and Ireland.The survey indicates that institutions in Europe (60.8%), North America (21.5%), and Australia with New Zealand (7.7%) overwhelmingly outnumbers institutions in South America (3.1%), Asia (3.1%), and Africa (0.8%). Even though the researchers have a better knowledge of Europe, North America, and Australia than they have of the rest of the world, the survey testifies that these continents overwhelmingly dominate web-based education.There is a steady growth of institutions that offer online courses to students in other countries, and the analysis presents many examples of international collaboration and thinking. However, most of the global initiatives seem to be experiments and ambitions rather than main priorities.Institutional IssuesA large number of the institutions offer quite few web courses. As many as 23.1% of the institutions report to have only one web-course, and 46.2% of them report to offer less than 5 courses. Only four institutions reported to have 100 courses or more. From this, one can infer that much of the activities are experimental and not pivotal for the institutions. The survey also showed that 29.3% of the institutions report that they have 100 or fewer students. Only four institutions reported to have more than 5000 students. The relatively low enrolment numbers also indicate that web-based instruction is not pivotal to these institutions.One may conclude that there is a dominance of web-courses in the fields of computer and information sciences and by courses in education. Except from these two fields, web courses cover a very broad range of subjects. The number of subject areas that was offered varied considerably between the institutions. Nearly half of the institutions offer courses in only one category and only five offered courses in five or more categories.None of the surveyed institutions seem to provide enough online courses and support services that this analysis would characterize them as virtual or online universities. The survey shows that 60.0% of the 130 institutions belong to the university and college sector, 10.0% to the traditional open university and distance education sector, and 9.2% were classified as companies or corporations.Administrative IssuesAn administrative system should be able to handle students, teachers, courses, and course material. An online college may have to handle thousands of students, hundreds of teachers, and a large number of courses with password restricted web pages, discussion forums, distribution lists, class rosters, and student presentations. It may also have to provide administrative systems for the dispatch of textbooks, handling of tuition and examination fees, and organization of local examinations. These services constitute a major challenge for many traditional institutions.Institutions that plan to offer large scale and professional online education need an administrative system, which is integrated with the web. To accomplish this, institutions may follow several strategies. The simplest strategy is probably to collaborate with an institution that already has a functional administrative system. Another solution, which requires more technical competence, is to develop an in-house system based on common Internet services. The third option is to purchase a standard system for online education. These standard systems are continuously being improved, but they may still need much local adaptation. They may only meet some of the administrative needs, and they could place some pedagogical limitations on the courses.A discouraging, but important observation is that a number of institutions do not use the web for administrative purposes. Outsourcing is an option that does not seem to be much used, only one instance was identified. Many of the institutions have developed in-house administrative solutions in combinations with standard Internet software. The standard administrative systems that were mentioned in the interviews were FirstClass, WebCT, and Lotus Notes.Advertising and Financial IssuesIt is implicit in many of the interviews that advertising of programs and courses is an important function of the web-services.The tuition fees for web-courses seem to vary considerably among institutions and courses. Some courses are free and open to everyone, and others seem to have full or partial external funding. The institutions that operate with tuition fees seem to have fees that are the same or not very different from fees in traditional courses. The analysis has revealed few, if any, examples of institutions with substantial income from student fees. Likewise, there seem to be few institutions that can claim that provision of web-based courses has been an economic success, if they disregard external research and development grants.Pedagogical IssuesThe tutors seem to be both part-time teachers that are engaged just for the online courses and full-time teachers that also teach some online courses. It is also interesting to observe that distributed experts and students take part in the tutoring.An analysis of the interviews indicates that the tutors at least conduct the following functions: Organizational functions: structure discussions, pacing, put forward initiatives Social functions: monitor groups Intellectual functions: answer questions, guiding students on the Internet Assessment functions: give feedback to assignments, correct submissions Human tutoring seems to be much more common than machine tutoring, but some institutions include machine tutoring in addition to human tutoring. Most institutions seem to combine individual tutoring with group tutoring. The focus between the two could however vary. Online teaching is in many courses supplemented with face-to-face meetings, video- or audio-conferences, or telephone contact.Some institutions have course development teams; others use the tutor as the sole designer of a course. The different models probably have implications for both quality control and development time.AccreditationThe interview analysis implies that accreditation of online courses and programs is very similar to the institutions traditional accreditation schemes. Degrees, diplomas, certificates, and statements of completions are all widely used. The accreditation seems to be the same independent on whether the course or program is offered online or not. Many institutions basically state that the accreditation is the same as for campus courses.Accreditation could be an important competitive advantage and several strategies could be followed to achieve the necessary accreditation. Collaboration with institutions in other countries could result in bilateral accreditation.AssessmentWhile summative assessment of online courses seems to be very traditional and often has a face-to-face component, formative assessment is more experimental and based on online activities.Most of the institutions apply several assessment methods in a course or program. Tutor assessment is the most common form of assessment found in the interviews. The interviews reveal many examples of self-assessment, but they imply that computer assessment is relatively scarce. However there are several examples of online quizzes, multiple choice tests, and some examples of interactive exercises. The interview analysis implies that peer assessment is relatively scarce. The interviews indicate that some courses have no assessment simply because they are self-study courses with no tutors.Enrollment and Progress FlexibilityBoth enrollment and progress can be more or less flexible. However, the two main models found in the interviews are group enrollment and progress and individual enrollment and progress. These models represent two different strategies that have important consequences for marketing, administrative systems, and pedagogical approaches.The interviews testify that group based enrollment and progression is far more used than individual enrollment and progression. The analysis identified 46 institutions that used the group model and 12 that followed the individual model. In addition, 11 institutions offered both models.The preponderance of the group model could come from conventional thinking that sustains the semester and term system in traditional educational systems. Another possible reason is that the institutions have a well-considered perception that teamwork and collaborative learning is hard to achieve with individual enrollment and progress. One can however argue that many students will prefer individual flexibility and that many institutions lack systems, structures, and competence on individual enrollment and progression. If so, one may hypothesize that open universities and distance teaching institutions should be more disposed of individual flexibility than traditional universities and colleges. However, the analysis has not found evidence to support this hypothesis.Future DevelopmentThe interest in online education is high, and it seems to proliferate rapidly and globally. A Canadian competitive analysis (www.telelearn.ca/g_access/news/comp_analysis.pdf) shows that the primary expansion strategies are more and diverse programs, international students, and new and nice markets such as corporate training. The CISAER interviewees foresaw a future with more web-courses, additional online services, better quality of the courses, enhanced focus on teacher training, further collaborations with other institutions, and additional organizationa