Online education, also known as distance education, is one of the qualifications of adult education. It refers to the teaching mode using TV, Internet and other media, which breaks through the boundaries of time and space and is different from the traditional teaching mode of staying in school. Students who use this teaching mode are usually amateurs. Because you don't need to go to a specific place to attend classes, you can attend classes anytime and anywhere. Students can also learn from each other through various channels, such as TV broadcast, internet, special counseling hotline, class research club and face-to-face teaching (correspondence). It is a new concept after modern information technology is applied to education, that is, education by using network technology and environment. Enrollment targets are not limited by age and previous academic qualifications, which provides opportunities for people who have entered the society to improve their academic qualifications.

Network education has developed rapidly in China and played a great role in the field of education in China. This paper introduces the definition and classification of online education, discusses its advantages and existing problems, and looks forward to its development trend.

With the development of informatization in China, netizens' cognition of online education and social recognition of academic education. Up to now, looking at the online education market in China in 20 16 years, the industry has shown a trend of diversified educational forms, differentiated educational products and diversified channels, and the overall industry market scale, the number of enterprises and the scale of users have maintained steady growth.

According to the data of "Analysis Report on Online Education Market Prospects and Investment" issued by Prospective Industry Research Institute, the number of online education users has exceeded1000000 in 20 16 years, reaching1030000, with a year-on-year increase of 16.7%. With the popularity of the Internet, the formation of users' habits, the marketing of enterprises and other reasons, the number of online education users will continue to increase at a rate of more than 15% in the next few years, and it is expected to reach10.2 billion in 20 17 years.

In the future, with the in-depth development of online education market, the degree of competition will become more and more fierce. In this case, enterprises will start to strengthen open cooperation with the help of capital in the fierce competition and gradually integrate within the industry. The forms of cooperation will present diversified development characteristics, such as user sharing, resource exchange, capital investment in different fields, cross-border integration and mergers and acquisitions.