高等教育慕课市场的认证机制研究

Accreditation Mechanism of MOOC in Higher Education Market

慕课利用信息技术打破了面对面教学的时空限制,具有为亿万人提供优质高等教育的潜力。但由于教育和劳动力市场存在信息不对称,慕课质量和学习者成就需要通过认证才能获得社会承认。大学是一个具有教育和认证功能的组织,必须向学习者保证服务质量并帮助其向雇主证明自己的能力。高等教育认证是大学获得学生和雇主信任的基石。目前的高等教育认证主要通过计算有形资源和学术成果对学校和专业进行评价,但慕课认证需要对课程和学习者做出评价。依据学习者的需求,高等教育慕课市场可细分为大学慕课市场和职业慕课市场。大学慕课认证的关键在于组建大学联盟,制定慕课认证标准,集体认可慕课学分。职业慕课认证的关键在于借用慕课开发者的信誉、颁发信息详细的电子证书,向雇主发送优质信号。美国一流大学的卓越声誉有利于职业慕课得到雇主认可,但学校间的利益冲突影响慕课进入大学校园。中国高等教育发展落后于美国,中国大学比美国大学更愿意承认和引进慕课,所以中国大学慕课认证应当侧重于遴选优质课程,职业慕课认证应当组建大学和企业联盟,通过权威认证促进市场成长。

Through applying information technology, MOOCs are breaking down the barrier of space and time in face-to-face teaching and making it possible to provide high quality education for billions of people. However, because of asymmetric information in education and labor market, the quality of MOOC and learners’ achievements can not be acknowledged by the public without accreditation. Conventionally, universities are both as educators and accreditors simultaneously. A university must assure learners the quality of its services and convince employers of the abilities of its graduates. Learners’ and employers’ trust in a university is built on the fact of its having been accredited. The present accreditations of higher education consist of college accreditation and program accreditati on which are based on the evaluation of physical resources and academic publications. However, the MOOC accreditation needs to evaluate both the courses and the learning outcome, therefore the three major MOOC platforms in the United States have adopted several innovative strategies to make MOOCs credible. According to learners’ needs, MOOCs in higher education can be divided into two categories, MOOCs for university and MOOCs for career development. College students wish to replace or supplement their local courses with high quality MOOCs and thus enhance the outcome of their learning. The effective accreditation of MOOCs for universities requires forming a credit consortium who enact the standard for MOOC accreditation and coordinate collective recognitions of MOOC credits. Professionals wish that MOOC learning can help them quickly master the knowledge and skills, and secure opportunities of job interview and employment. The effective accreditation of MOOCs for career development depends on the prestige of MOOC developers and the informative digitally verified certificates that can be considered as signals of high quality. The outstanding reputation of top universities facilitates the acceptance of MOOC by employers but the conflicts among colleges hinder the entrance of MOOC to campus. Because higher education in China lags behind that of the US, Chinese colleges are more willing to accept and introduce MOOCs. So the accreditation of MOOCs for universities in China should emphasize on selection of courses with high quality. The accreditation of Chinese MOOCs for career developments should rely on a consortium of colleges and enterprises as well as the authoritative approval from the government to promote the growth of MOOC market . The open and competitive higher education market in the United States is conducive to discover the best accreditation mechanism for MOOC. And we believe in order to improve the quality and competence of Chinese MOOCs, government should give universities and MOOC platforms more freedom to design innovative accreditation mechanisms to meet the demand of higher education in China.