Introduction

The Department of Digitalisation coordinates cyber security and information technology at the OUC. It undertakes cyber-security management, sets up related systems and regulations, carries out IT systems-level protections and real-time monitoring, including for security risks, offering early warning and emergency drills, and implements security training; undertakes construction, operations, maintenance, planning, design and quality-control of IT projects; organises the construction and management of the OUC's IT infrastructure, including data centres and other assets; mines and analyses teaching-related data at the OUC, and promotes IT literacy and use within the system; and researches uses of new technology, exploring its integration into open distance education, and promoting school reforms on its basis.

Setup

The department consists of five offices: the Comprehensive Service Centre, Information Development and Planning Centre, Project Management Office, Big Data Centre, and Cyber and Information Security Office.

Contact

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IT Construction

Learning Platform

OUC Learning Network

The overall goal of the OUC Learning Network is to build a convenient and fast network that supports use of multiple terminals. It aim to support online activities that include classes, tutoring, Q&A, homework, testing, lesson preparation, research, curriculum construction and data query and statistics; allow numerous concurrent users rapid access and real-time interaction; analyse resources and learner behaviour from multiple perspectives via big data; and gain a deeper understanding of needs, and the uses of resources, to support teaching and decision-making.

At present, the project has completed research into demand, completed 90% of function development, including in the teaching module, and launched the pilot application. Support work for the latter is currently in progress. In addition, the OUC Learning Network has supported the construction of a digital channel for the School of Marxism and the development of a seminar for key teachers at the OUC headquarters. As the core platform, the teaching module of the OUC Learning Network has supported development of 8 teacher-training sessions for over 3,000 trainees in 2021.

Cloud Classroom: Technology in the Internet+ Classroom

In order to narrow the gap in the use of IT dividing the central-western regions and the east, promote its development in border areas, especially at the Xinjiang, Bingtuan and Tibet branches, support the development of education in Xinjiang and Tibet, help underdeveloped and border areas of the central and western regions and areas with ethnic minorities, and use distance education to share high-quality educational resources and promote balanced development of education, the Open University of China (OUC) launched a cloud-classroom project in early 2013. To this point, it has built 538 of these, covering 44 branches and local schools, study centres, and so on, with the aid of the OUC headquarters and its collaboration with branches. 111 cloud classrooms have been built in low-income areas such as three regions and three prefectures, and the Long March belt.

The core of the OUC cloud classrooms is interaction and sharing based on digital infrastructure and the internet, with the cloud teaching platform disseminating high-quality educational resources featuring real-time feedback. It has live-streaming and recording capabilities and supports multiple terminals, supporting large-scale real-time interaction and resource sharing. The cloud classroom emphasises using advanced technology to reach students across distances and offer them both personalised learning and group collaboration. A "cloud" classroom offers a combination of physical and virtual classrooms.

The cloud-classroom project has brought advanced educational technology and methods to marginal areas, greatly enhancing IT in places like Xinjiang, Qinghai, Tibet and Inner Mongolia, and allowing OUC-aided schools there, especially county-level schools, to make rapid progress. The cloud-classroom system is now widely used in teaching, research, management, and other areas, and has given the western branches of the OUC system access to high-quality teachers and resources, leading to reforms of face-to-face and remote teaching there.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020, cloud classrooms have been essential to online teaching, research, conferencing, and other activities of the OUC headquarters and branches, allowing "disrupted classes, undisrupted learning". On average, more than 7,000 sessions of online teaching, research, and conferencing have been carried out every semester.

Smart-learning Environments

Build Integrated Online-offline Smart-learning Environments

In 2015, the OUC launched its "Internet Plus" smart-education demonstration centre with a goal of integrating IT with teaching through modification of physical classrooms, and provide preliminary steps toward construction of a future smart-learning centre.

The centre integrates 5G-networked classrooms, AI, and big-data technologies to cover teaching, environment management, resources, real-time interaction, and context awareness to integrate online and offline teaching via 5G ultra-high-definition video interaction, 5G holographic classrooms, VR training rooms, multi-functional painting-and-calligraphy classrooms, physical training classrooms, smart lecture halls, virtual studios, smart classrooms, and so on, with software enabling multi-functional controls, mobile offices, or visitor reservations on all devices using digital QR codes to allow access to the campus, smart monitoring of spaces and teaching, and automatic recording of classes. "Internet Plus Education" is thereby a model of the future OUC campus.

5G holographic classroom: remote access allowing three-dimensional interaction

Virtual studio: high-quality course production, integration of image matting, and virtual scenes

VR classroom: human-machine interaction in an immersive virtual classroom

Educational Password-application Innovation

The Department of Digitalisation has researched the use of electronic seals, certificates and invoices, launching electronic billing, single-course-completion certification, and desensitisation for credit bank data, allowing electronic documents to be issued across the school system, including electronic invoicing, certification of the completion of individual courses, admissions notices, and appointment letters. Encrypted storage and barrier-free query of credit-bank data are also enabled. As of November 2021, electronic seals, licensing and invoicing are being put to use in a number of degree and non-degree programmes, and so far over 3.1 million electronic certificates have been issued.