Recorded Courses – The Future of Online Education Cannot Do Without You

At the recently held "2015 China Online Education Industry Summit," Shangde Oupeng argued that "no company in China's education market has achieved true disruptive innovation, and pointed out that recorded courses are actually a scam."

Recorded courses, which have been quietly working in the background, suddenly found themselves in the crosshairs. Tianya discussed this with several friends in the education sector.

Shangde stated that the engagement level of live courses is higher than that of recorded courses. Tianya believes that the live course market will continue to grow in the future, but for now, online education still faces many bottlenecks before it can fully replace traditional education. Recorded courses remain the mainstream of online education, both now and in the future.

The reasons why recorded courses will remain an inseparable part of the future of online education can be summarized as follows:

1. Learning anytime, anywhere:

    With a significant decline in PC traffic and a substantial increase in mobile traffic, the popularity of large-screen smartphones, and the current Premier's call to reduce data costs, one direction for future online education is learning anytime, anywhere, utilizing students' fragmented time. For example, a 5-minute micro-course can teach a single knowledge point. I often see young people on the Beijing subway watching accounting or programming videos on their phones, no less than those watching TV dramas or variety shows. Recorded courses are one of the main carriers of online education content and an indispensable part of its future.

2. "Interaction" is a secondary aspect derived from education:

    Teacher Ou believes that "recorded courses have low engagement and poor interactive experience." However, in the online education module, imparting knowledge and skills remains the ultimate goal of learning. Many educational institutions now incorporate interesting interactive features into recorded courses, such as Q&A functions and bullet comments. In the future, the development of interactive features for recorded courses will only increase. The quality of the course and interaction with teachers and classmates will become key factors for institutions to attract students. Therefore, the future of recorded courses should not be underestimated.

3. Recorded courses are better suited for creating high-quality content:

    From the perspective of the education industry, recorded courses can be meticulously prepared in advance and optimized through post-production editing. As long as thorough preparation is done before recording, a course rich in content and engaging activities can be created—an experience that live courses cannot achieve. Moreover, the course content can continuously bring value to the institution, attracting students. After class, student questions can be addressed in a unified manner. By focusing important resources on key courses, the resources allocated per student are minimized. Conversely, both institutions and students can achieve better learning outcomes.

Compared to recorded courses, the main bottlenecks for live courses can be summarized as follows:

1. Live courses require students to study at a fixed time. If they miss the live session, students can only review the content through video replays. Additionally, minor mistakes by the teacher during the live session can reduce video quality, affecting the viewing experience.
2. Interaction in live courses is more time-consuming. From our offline education experience, students interacting with teachers and classmates during a live course can disrupt their learning state and interrupt their train of thought. Compared to recorded courses, the learning effect is significantly diminished, requiring higher time costs and failing to make good use of fragmented time.
3. The future development of live courses on mobile devices is not promising. Currently, most live courses must be conducted on PCs, while the mobile experience—both in terms of interface and interactivity—is inferior to that of recorded courses.
4. From the institution's perspective, live courses have higher requirements for course content and recording hardware. The resources consumed for a single live session are far greater than those for a recorded course, yet the value generated is not as tangible as that of recorded courses.

    It is still too early to make a definitive judgment on live versus recorded courses. After all, China's education landscape is particularly unique. No matter which direction the wind blows for the future of online education, content remains the essence of education.