The Ministry of Education (MOE) Research Centre for Online Education recently released the results of its selection of 2018 “Demonstration Cases for Online Course Construction and Application.” Online Course Construction and Application from the Perspective of the Integration of Education and Technology: A Practical Exploration of the OUC Network Learning Course compiled by Learning Resources Department of the Open University of China (OUC) was selected as one of the cases.

The selection of the "Demonstration Cases for Online Course Construction and Application" is a key part of the work carried out recently by the MOE Research Centre for Online Education. It is designed to encourage universities/colleges and teachers to make active use of Internet tools and advanced teaching concepts to carry out teaching practice, promote the excellent experience of some universities in the smart teaching field, showcase online education construction at the school level, and demonstrate the teaching reform carried out by means of online course and smart teaching tools. It aims to provide guidance and demonstration for online education work among universities in China. Twenty nine universities, including Peking University and Chongqing University, were selected.

In recent years, the development goals of the era of education informatisation 2.0 have included building an integrated Internet+education platform, setting up a new model for learner development under Internet Plus, and developing a new model for web-based education services. In order to actively address this reform orientation, the OUC has attached great importance to online course construction, pushed forward reform of the "Six Network Integration" learner development model, and launched 247 online learning courses. At the same time, the OUC has launched public courses in cooperation with mainstream online education platforms (e.g. study.163, CNMOOC, iCourse, xuetangx, and icourse163) and worked hard to enhance its academic reputation and brand influence. To date, it has launched 10 MOOCs. Of these, SketchUp Interior Design, which is available on CNMOOC, has been selected as one of the MOE’s first group of "national premium online open courses.”

As a unit with a "Demonstration Case of Online Course Construction and Application", the OUC will keep up with the Internet+Education era and continue to promote online course construction, striving to push the integration of IT and education to a deeper level. At the same time, it will expand its coverage of fine learning resource sharing, bear its mission in mind without forgetting its original intention, and promote the construction of a learning society for national and lifelong learning.

By Zhou Xiang, OUC