Research On The Development Process Of Open Online Courses Provided By American Universities And Colleges

The world is becoming more open with the development of internet. Ascommunication medium, internet has a great effect on instruction. American universitiesand colleges use internet to deliver courses to the public in an active manner and achieve aremarkable success. Universities and colleges in our country have provided open courses ingood quality and enjoy great achievements. However, the usage of these resources is not asextensive as the resources themselves. It is worthy of further research: how to make theextensive courses be extensively used and help user to achieve better teaching and learningresults in order to make them more open to public. Thus, this research tries to provide somesuggestion on this problem by analyzing the development process of open online coursesprovided by American universities and colleges and generalizing its experiences.According to the course forms, this research divides the development process of openonline courses provided by American universities and colleges into two phases: supplycourses material stage (2002-2010) and instruction stage (2011until now).The main content of this thesis includes description and analysis of the two phases byliterature analysis method, statistical analysis method and content analysis method. Thisresearch describes and analyzes the project general profile, supply, usage and effects inmacro perspective as well as the course design, course content, course implementation andcourse evaluation in micro perspective.The research focuses on: concluding the general development process of open onlinecourses on the basis of two phases; pointing out the development of the later phasecompared with the earlier phase; analyzing these developments and related questions behindthese developments; discussing what we can learn from the development process.At last, this research combines the experiences in the development process of openonline courses provided by American universities and colleges with the practice ofproviding open online courses among our universities and colleges in order to makecorresponding suggestions which include establishing open course concept, improving the construction of course resources and enhancing courses’ instruction effects.