OER1124 Oral Presentation pptx

Friday 13 May 10.30 Cockcroft Theatre

The National Courses of Excellence Program: Open Educational Resources for Higher Education in China

Elpida Makriyannis, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University
Yimin Jia, Future Education Research Centre, South China Normal University

Conference Theme: OER strategy and sustainability

Abstract: Open Educational Resources have grown in importance over the past decade in China, with synergies to the international OER movement and strong social and cultural links within the Chinese educational community. This paper presents a case study of the development of the National Courses of Excellence program launched by the Ministry of Education and adopted by educational institutions across China. The main purpose of the program was to develop and make openly available to everyone educational materials of the highest quality, triggering a transition from an elite higher education for the few to mass higher education for all. Educational materials were developed collaboratively within teaching teams and distributed online via university websites. The government played a strategic role in developing a model for the selection of the best teaching courses and providing a simplified licensing framework. A community consisting mainly of the teaching teams who designed the educational resources and students who contributed to this process were responsible for sustaining and updating the teaching materials. Anecdotal evidence is presented, based on surveys and interviews with program participants and observations of community activities, highlighting the challenges and opportunities facing OERs in China and also revealing the impact of digital technologies on enabling more young people to access and receive quality higher education.

Keywords: oer; china; educational policy; sustainability

References:

Håklev, Stian. 2010. The Chinese National Top Level Courses Project: Using Open Educational Resources to Promote Quality in Undergraduate Teaching. MA Thesis, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Li, Jun and Jing Lin. 2008. China’s Higher Education Expansion: A Policy Analysis from a Rational Framework. In The Worldwide Transformation of Higher Education, edited by David P. Baker and Alexander W. Wiseman. International Perspectives on Education & Society, 9. Bingley, UK: JAI Press.

Announcement by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China about initiating the teaching quality and teaching reform project for colleges and universities: Jing Pin Ke, the construction of the National Excellence Courses. Available at: http://www.jingpinke.com

Pretorius, S. G. and Y. Q. Xue. 2003. The Transition from Elite to Mass Higher Education: A Chinese Perspective. Prospects 33 (1).

Yang, Rui. 2004. Toward Massification: Higher Education Development in the People's Republic of China since 1949. In Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, edited by John C. Smart. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 311-374.