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近两年，世界名校网络公开课受到热捧，各大字幕组争相出字幕，门户网站也争相购版权。一时间，追随网络公开课的人似乎都有点比别人先进一步的感觉。这些网络公开课在英语里叫Massive Open Online Course（MOOC）。 MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are the latest addition to the acronym-bound lexicon of higher education, and quite possibly the most significant of them all. They represent a new generation of online education, freely accessible on the internet and geared towards very large student numbers. MOOC（网络公开课）是高等教育相关缩写词汇中的新成员，也可能是所有词汇中最具影响力的一个。网络公开课代表网络教育的新一代，可以通过网络免费获取，接收到学生数目巨大。 The phenomenon has been likened by the president of Stanford University to "a digital tsunami", threatening to sweep aside conventional university education. Whether or not the rise of MOOCs will prove to warrant such hyperbole, there is no doubt that something very important is happening in the global system, raising profound questions about the very nature and future of higher education. 这一现象被斯坦福大学的校长比作“一场数字海啸”，称有可能将传统大学教育全部“冲走”。不论网络公开课的崛起是否真的会达到如此夸张的阶段，有一点可以肯定的是全球体系内正在发生一些重要的事情，并引发了对高等教育本质和将来的一些疑问。 | 
