On March 20, 2012, 154 trainees completed the WIDE World online professional development programme named "Teaching for Understanding 1", jointly operated by Beijing Open University (Beijing OU) and Harvard Graduate School of Education.
WIDE World (Wide-scale Interactive Development for Educators) is a programme based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education that converts the results of academic research by Gardner and other experts into web-based training courses for instructors.
The 5th National Chinese Language Conference, sponsored by China's Hanban (Confucius Institute Headquarters), The US College Board, and The Asia Society, was held from April 12th to the 14th, 2012, in Washington, DC. More than 1300 Educational administrators, presidents and teachers from secondary and primary schools, as well the presidents of various Confucius institutes, attended the conference. The Chinese Language Center of the Open University of China （OUC） participated
In the summer of 1980, 10-month-old Liu Xin was struck by the measles and lost hearing after a high fever of 41.5 ℃. Ever since then, he has been living in a soundless world.
At the age of nine, Liu Xin began to receive special education at the Lanzhou School for the Deaf and Blind, and there began his dance career. Later he joined the provincial performing arts troupe for disabled people. Liu said that since his ears could never hear the beautiful music, for each dance his sign language teacher would use gestures to convey the rhythm of the music. He would capture the rhythm with his eyes and feel the music in his heart, and then voice the language of dance through
Recently, the "2011 Community Education Music Broadcast and Competition" drew a close. This activity was hosted by the Ministry of Education Community Education Research and Training Center (Open University of China) and the Community Education Committee of the Chinese Adult Education Association, with guidance from the MoE Department of Vocational and Adult Education, the China Adult Education Association and Music Education Sub-Commission
Liu Ping suffers from polio. After an operation in 2007, his weak limbs have made it extremely difficult for him to move around. Wu Wenjing is a young man from Aba Prefecture who lost sight in one eye when he was a senior in high school due to an accidental fall while reading on the roof of a seven-story building.
Recently, a delegation of seven persons from the Open University of China (OUC) visited Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Canada, Colorado State University Global Campus (CSU-Global Campus）and University of Maryland University College (UMUC）in the U.S. for scholarly exchange on topics such as credit transfer, Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) and online learning. The parties also discussed future collaboration and development plans.
Between February 27-29, 2012, the Constitutive Meeting of the new ICDE Executive Committee was held in Oslo, Norway. The six members of the ICDE Executive Committee and more than 60 leaders from major universities all over Norway were in attendance. As a member of the ICDE Executive Committee and president of the Open University of China (OUC), Dr. Yang Zhijian attended the meeting and delivered a keynote speech.
On February 16, 2012, the Open University of China (OUC) and Centre National d'Enseignement à Distance (CNED) signed an agreement for educational collaboration and exchange at CNED headquarters in Poitiers. According to the agreement, the two parties will cooperate extensively in pursuing distance education initiatives including Chinese and French language instruction, as well as course sharing, resource sharing, and cooperative research and teaching exchange.