The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasises "promoting the digitalisation of education and building a society and country of learning where lifelong learning is pursued by all."
By concentrating on adult education and striving to elevate the standards of online teaching, the Open University of China (OUC) plays a pivotal role in contributing to the nation's goal of becoming a global leader in education. In 2020, the OUC was approved for a general project under the National Social Science Fund titled "Curriculum Design and Application Research for Adult Online Education from the Perspective of Deep Learning," with Li Song, a member of the Party Committee and vice president of the OUC, serving as the project lead.
To ensure high-quality completion of the project and to gather expert opinions and suggestions, as well as to further refine and disseminate the research findings, the project team organised a closing seminar on 18 July 2024. Zeng Tianshan, a member of the Party Committee and deputy director, researcher of the Institute of Curriculum and Textbook Research of the Ministry of Education; Gao Baoli, former deputy director researcher of the China National Academy of Educational Sciences; and Li Fengliang, professor of the Institute of Education, Tsinghua University, acted as the seminar experts. Li Song and members of the project team attended the meeting, which was chaired by Wang Guochuan, director of the OUC’s Department of Reform and Development/Office of Research Management.
The project team reported to the experts on the progress and achievements of the project. Since its inception, the team has conducted in-depth research on issues such as "why adults learn," "how to achieve deep learning for adults," and "how to design online courses that promote deep learning for adults." Through methods such as literature research, questionnaire surveys, qualitative interviews, and design-based research, the team has produced five articles in CSSCI core journals and one article in an SSCI foreign journal, as well as a draft manuscript of the book "Promoting Deep Learning: Online Course Design for Adult Learners." Based on the project research, the team has also advanced multiple open education teaching reforms and has been approved for several provincial and ministerial level teaching reform projects. The research conducted by the project team has yielded valuable insights that can inform the enhancement of adult online course design and the elevation of adult online learning quality, thereby offering a benchmark for the advancement of high-quality open and online education.
The experts fully acknowledged the research work and progress of the project team, offering valuable opinions and suggestions for the next phase of the completion work from different perspectives. They hoped that the project team would leverage the advantages of the Open University to further strengthen the transformation, promotion, and extension research of the post-completion findings, continuously expanding the scope and social influence of the project, and deeply committed to the construction of a leading country in education and the development of a learning country.
By OUC