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DOTCOM mania was slow in coming to higher education, but now it has the venerable industry firmly in its grip. Since the launch

admin2016-10-15  31
问题     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.
    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.
    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.
    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.
    The industry has similar network economics to Amazon, eBay and Google, says Ms Roller, 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.
    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.
    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.
According to the passage, each of the following is true of Udacity and Coursera EXCEPT:
选项 A、Coursera has started charging to provide certificates for those who complete its courses and want proof.
B、Coursera has abandoned attempts to help firms recruit employees from among Coursera’ s students.
C、working with companies to train existing and future employees is now the heart of Udacity’s business model.
D、Coursera recently formed a partnership with AT&T, along with Georgia Tech, to offer a master’s degree in computer science.
答案D
解析 本题考查考生对最后两段关于Udacity和Coursera两个公司在扩展其商业模式方面的探讨的描述。注意，题目中的“all true…EXCEPT”表明了这个题目是要选出描述错误的那一项。逐项对应文章，[A]出现在第六段的第三句，[B]出现在第六段最后一句，都是关于Coursera的正确描述。[C]出现在第七段的第一句，是关于Udacity公司的正确描述。只有[D]，描述的内容出现在第七段第三句，但是是关于Udacity公司的做法，而非Coursera，因此描述错误，应该选[D]。
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