Online learning trend to enliven Chinese education (3)

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Language has been the main obstacle for MOOC's spread in China, while it is much more popular in India and other English-speaking countries. There is general agreement that the best way for MOOC to spread in China is to shoot Chinese-language videos in the country.

As an education pioneer of Chinese origin, Ng wants to express his own "loyalty" to China and he believes the value of Chinese courses needs to be shared all over the world. Besides, some courses are better taught with a local flavor, in his view.

Ng's talks with universities have resulted in some early success in this regard. In August, Coursera will launch a Chinese-language platform linked to National Taiwan University's history classes, according to Ng, and similar services for a Chinese opera course run by the Chinese University of Hong Kong are likely to begin soon.

Coursera's co-founder is in discussions with mainland universities, though he declines to reveal how these are progressing.

At the heart of these goings-on is the question of which Chinese websites, institutions and companies will win dominance in the emerging MOOC sector in China. Investors have been keenly eyeing the industry.

Tsinghua's Sun Maosong notes that the Chinese government has attached great importance to online learning and has been working for years to make approved courses available.

The new impact of MOOC has made the government and many universities speed up such work independently.

While Coursera and its rivals have sought universities' cooperation to develop Chinese-language online courses in China, Sun suggests that institutions may prefer to set up their own versions instead of join foreign platforms. It could be more practical for out-riding professors to join Coursera, rather than a whole university.

"Chinese courses need to be made in China, not America," he says, stressing that MOOC is still "in the experimental phase" and that some universities may wait for the platforms to become more proven before explicitly backing them.

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