In the beginning, cyber universities were operated as a means for bestowing degrees to adults who had not acquired a degree. However, there are now many college graduates, too, who knock on the door of a cyber university to acquire rapidly changing new knowledge in an era of knowledge availability on the level of lifelong education.
Some cyber universities do not stop at teaching Koreans in the Korean market, but have turned their eye overseas and have been expanding the domain to teach Koreans living overseas and foreigners overseas.
However, it can be said that the internationalization of cyber universities is merely starting right now. The internationalization of cyber universities can be largely divided into exchanges and cooperation with foreign universities, the attraction of foreign students to cyber universities, and the support for the overseas study and overseas entry of cyber university students.
Some cyber universities have been providing Korean language education support in cyberspace through exchanges and cooperation with foreign universities. However, they have not reached substantial cooperation such as the export of contents, the exchange of credits, the operation of a professor exchange program, and others of the like.
Meanwhile, some cyber universities have been focusing on the attraction of foreign students.
However, in most cases, Koreans residing overseas have still been the main students. Also, some cyber universities have reached an agreement with foreign universities so that students can study overseas graduate school programs online after graduation. Therefore, they have been supporting programs through which students can attend foreign universities while living in Korea without going overseas.
In fact, cyber universities are very good universities for internationalization. The reason is that although in order for a foreign student to study at an offline university, the foreigner must actually come to Korea, cyber universities do not require students to come to Korea.
However, even if the lecturer teaches in the Korean language, cyber universities can provide lectures simultaneously in many languages, including English, Chinese and others, by converting the content. Hence, they have the strong point of foreign students being able to listen to lectures without any language barriers.
Meanwhile, the IT infrastructure of Korea, as an advanced country in terms of IT, is very well established. It provides very favorable conditions for Korean cyber universities to pursue internationalization. Most of the cyber universities have secured a technological level on which students can listen to lectures with clear picture quality and quick interface so that they do not experience any inconvenience. As such, their competitiveness does not fall behind at all compared to the cyber universities of other advanced countries.
But the road is long for the internationalization of cyber universities. Many people working at cyber universities are still only interested in the domestic market and do not keenly and actually feel the need for internationalization. And it is a reality that many cyber universities do not have much strength for investing in internationalization.
Needless to say, the securing of the lecturers and experts who can be in charge of making content in English or Chinese is difficult. First of all, the costs are great compared to the effects. Also, the situation is such that the government's support for the internationalization of the cyber universities is totally nonexistent.
The fact that the IT infrastructure of China and Southeast Asian countries, which will become our main markets, are weak has been an impediment factor for the international entry of cyber universities.
Despite these factors, the long-term forecast for the internationalization of cyber universities is relatively bright. It is forecast that in the future, if the Chinese, Southeast Asian, and Central Asian markets are pioneered, following the Korean wave fever, and if the opportunities for studying at Korea's cyber universities through inexpensive and convenient methods are provided by materializing the e-learning globalization of the education in the Korean language, the demand will increase.
