On July 3, 2013, the MOE Research and Development Center for the Integration and Application of Digital Learning Technologies (hereinafter referred to as the R & D Centre) was inaugurated in the Open University of China (OUC). Professor Liu Yanshen, Vice Director of the National Engineering Research Center for E-learning and the OUC President Yang Zhijiang unveiled the center.
The R & D Center, created by the OUC, carries on the OUC’s idea of “openness” in running the school, focuses on teaching and learning of modern distance education, centers on combining science and educational technology, all with the goal of supporting the OUC's ideal of digital learning that can serve the needs of people at all levels of society, pool the strengths and achievements of many, and link diverse members. Overall, such concepts embody integration innovation and extension application.
The objective of the R & D Center is to establish a center with the characteristics of modern open and distance education for top-notch technology research and development, coupled with system integration and application. The overall goal is to take the lead in China with a batch of theoretical and application research results reaching or even leading at the international level. The establishment of the R & D Center will offer significant decision-making support in policy formulation and programme actualization, in particular, when concerning the implementation of the national development strategy as regards education, especially the construction of a lifelong education system and a learning society, the promotion of digital learning, and educational reform and innovation.
The major task of the R & D Center is to give high attention to existing key problems in the development of China’s digital learning, such as “the separation of technology and education”, “isolated information”, “redundant construction”, “high input and low output”, and “low level information technology application”. The technological breakthroughs, integrated innovation, and innovation in project practice will be the core to upgrading the quality of open and distance education with information technology; engineering research and system integration of digital learning with important market value shall be promoted in the fields of core online courses, online teaching teams, online students’/teachers’ space, online TV channels, online learning assessment, online credit bank, digital learning resources, and mobile Internet learning terminals. With the ultimate goal being to transform them into key common engineering technologies geared to the needs of scaled production or technological products that can be successful in the market, and to successively provide the public with technological achievements in educational digitization and engineering; practical technical standards and learning resources development criteria are to be studied and put forward; international cooperation and exchange is to be carried out to introduce advanced foreign technologies and to digest, absorb, and improve on them; cross-discipline training is to be advanced to train technological innovation and management talents; information and consultation service is to be provided for the development of distance education and related fields.
The site for the construction of the R & D Center is divided into two parts: engineering research and demonstration cultivation. The former is distributed among OUC headquarters, Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Telecom, Distance Online Education Technology Co., Ltd (www.open.edu.cn), and Education Technology Company for Ubiquitous Learning; while the latter is mainly found in OUC branches, colleges, tutorial centers, and the National Digital Learning Resource Center. Branch institutions have been set up to render effective support to the research of the above key engineering problems and the smooth advancement of the engineering projects planned to be implemented at present, such as Department of Digital Learning Environment Integration Development, Department of Learning Resources, Research Department on Deep Integration Model and Application of Technology with Education, Department of Quality Standards, Department of Product Accreditation and Extension. In addition, there are also advisory bodies such as the Technology Committee and Support Alliance. Professor Zhao Xinping from the national key laboratory of virtual reality technology and systems (Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics) has been invited to act as director of the Technology Committee, and Vice Director Liu Yanshen, of the National Engineering Research Centre for E-learning was invited to serve as chairman of the Support Alliance.
By Wei Shunping, the OUC