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Rosetta books @ http://rosettabooks.com/pages/homepage.html
for e-books Foreign Policy March/April issue Net Effect/Spinning History @
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_janfeb_2003/neteffect.html
for some interesting websites of former leaders now online. And from the same FP site: Cap, Gown, Mouse The number of people seeking higher education
worldwide has grown exponentially in recent years, rising from 13 million in
1960 to 65 million in 1991. It’s projected to hit 130 million by 2010. The
developing world is no exception. China, for instance, currently sends 6
percent of its students to tertiary education and hopes to increase that figure
to 15 percent by 2010. Demand is rising faster than developing nations can
build universities. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) believes
the Internet can help. Its OpenCourseWare
(OCW) pilot program went online last September at ocw.mit.edu. Modeled on open-source computer programs, OCW
will eventually post all of MIT’s course offerings online—including class
notes, syllabi, and exams—but will not confer degrees. MIT calls OCW “a model
for university dissemination of knowledge in the Internet age.” The idea is winning support in the education
community. “The [online education] business is going
to be dead by 2005,” predicts Allan Goodman, president of the New
York–based Institute of International Education. “If you can get all of MIT
online for free, why pay for anything else?” Not everyone is convinced. Other universities still
see a profitable, untapped market. Oxford, Yale,
and Stanford universities operate www.allearn.com, a fee-for-service site that serves
students in 30 countries and offers courses designed by academic heavyweights,
like Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Jack Rakove. Columbia University runs www.fathom.com, a site that
has pulled in a wide range of partners, including the London School of
Economics and Political Science. It offers hundreds of courses in every
department from astronomy to veterinary science. Fathom CEO Ann Kirschner
compares the MIT model to browsing a bookstore—great for casual interest, but
not serious study. “If you want a course with serious interactive engagement
with faculty,” she says, “you’ll pay for it.” It’s too early to tell what impact online education
sites are having in the developing world. And with the sluggish rate of
Internet penetration in poorer countries, narrowing the education divide may
ultimately depend on narrowing the digital divide. Andrew Curry is associate editor at
U.S. News & World Report. Outgoing mail scanned by NAV 2002 |
