3.3 Establish online open classes to promote virtual internationalization

Traditional university internationalization characterized by overseas study or visitation is limited in terms of time, cost and scale. The establishment of online open classes facilitates virtual university internationalization through the Internet. Foreign students can become students of open universities though direct online registration and they can study courses until graduation. To establish online open classes suited for internationalization, it is necessary to grasp the needs of international students and to design courses taught in foreign languages. When it comes to online open classes, time and space are no longer issues, but language remains a key issue.

Establishing online open classes to boost virtual internationalization involves the following. The first is to establish online open classes suited to international students, and develop a multilingual teaching and learning platform with at least an English edition. The second is to have both Chinese students and foreign students take the online courses together, study together and have discussions together. The third is to use online open classes as a major way to advance virtual IOU via the Internet.

The establishment of online open classes helps advance virtual IOU development. First, overseas study can be realized online without going abroad. Online open classes promote the internationalization of the student body, course content and online teaching platform itself. Second, the utilization of technology through online classes lowers the cost of internationalization, improves the efficiency of learning and management, and enhances the flexibility and convenience of study.

3.4 Promote international learning accreditation and credit transfer to realize communication between domestic and international education systems

International learning accreditation and credit transfer helps to break through the boundaries of schools, countries and regions. Achieving credit transfer between different countries and schools is the systemic foundation for IOU. The students’ freedom to select courses and receive credit from domestic and international universities will drive the process of education internationalization.

To establish a system of international learning accreditation and credit transfer: First, open universities should set up majors, courses and credits according to international standards so as to lay the foundation for implementing international learning accreditation and credit transfer. Second, international standards, methods and procedures must be formulated for learning accreditation and credit transfer. Third, a web-based system for learning accreditation and credit transfer should be developed with the support of information technology. Finally, learning accreditation and credit transfer must take into consideration various types and levels of education, such as degree education and non-degree education, campus-based learning and online learning, formal learning and informal learning.

Promoting international learning accreditation and credit transfer and facilitating communication between domestic and international education systems has the following benefits. First, it helps keep the open university's majors, courses and credits up to international standards to ensure the university's quality of education and level of operation. Second, it helps students study domestic and international majors and courses and receive credit in a more convenient and flexible way. Third, it promotes the utilization of OER, and motivates students to study using online OER and receive credit through corresponding accreditation mechanisms.

3.5 Encourage teachers at home and abroad to form a research community for online teaching to promote “one-on-one” cooperation

As distance education teachers are distributed across different areas, course teaching teams need to be formed to ensure teaching quality and to use the team's strengths to serve the students. However, teaching teams usually include only teachers in China, and few teachers abroad are involved. This impairs the expansion of teachers’ international horizons and the accumulation of scientific experience for internationalized teaching, and hurts IOU development.

Forceful measures need to be taken to encourage teachers at home and abroad to form a research community for online teaching. The first is to encourage and invite world-class scholars and professors to form research teams for online teaching, especially for certain common courses, such as courses of natural science. The second is to establish an interactive platform for online teaching and research that promotes ample communication between Chinese and foreign teachers. This will help teachers of open universities to improve their specialized knowledge and skills and their capacity for cross-cultural communication, and to learn about the latest progress in international research. The third is to make “online” cooperation a main trend through institutional mechanisms and keep foreign teachers’ enthusiasm to participate in the teaching research community. For example, they can be employed as part-time professors of open universities. The last is to continuously improve teachers’ foreign language skills, international communication skills and Internet skills through training, etc., enabling them to work more closely with foreign teachers and steadily upgrading the scientific research level of the open university.

Encouraging teachers at home and abroad to form teaching research communities and to promote direct “one-on-one” collaboration is beneficial for the acceleration of IOU development. First, it is good for the internationalization of courses and teachers, and enhances the school's international competitiveness and attractiveness. Second, it helps maintain favorable, in-depth and stable academic relationships with foreign universities. By innovating partnership models between domestic and international universities, and forming bilateral contact mechanisms centered around teachers, the two parties can work together directly on specific majors, courses and teachers, and even in specific areas in the process of teaching and research. Third, it can enhance the international reputation of open universities. As the number and level of cooperating universities and teachers increase and as more communities are formed, the influence and international reputation of open universities is boosted.

IV. Conclusion

One of the basic views held in this study on IOU theories is that university internationalization is defined and delineated by the four elements of objective, level, capacity and activity. Next, an open index framework for IOU is constructed around these same four elements. This is the major difference between this study and most of the current research on university internationalization. The study on IOU pathways mainly deals with strategic measures and policy choices. These measures and policies strive to fit in with the orientation of open universities and the characteristics of distance education, and are especially focused on web-based virtual university internationalization. We project that web-based virtual university internationalization will become a prominent trend for IOU development and also a hot spot for research on university internationalization in the future. Though this study explores IOU theories and pathways, there are still some problems. First, the meaning of IOU needs further definition and analysis. Second, the IOU index framework is not systematic enough and needs completion and further verification. Third, the strategic measures and policy choices suggested in the study need to be put into practice and tested. The next step is to increase international comparative study and empirical study based on the current index framework of internationalization to form the IOU index system, and conduct a pilot implementation of the strategic measures and related polices to explore appropriate mechanisms for implementation, management and evaluation.

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Note: “A Study of Theories on and Pathways to Internationalization in Open Universities” is a key research programme of the OUC in 2011(G11AQ0007Z). The Chinese version of this research paper is published in Modern Distance Education, 2012 (5): pp.47-54. 
【Chinese library classification】G728  【Document code】A 
【Article ID】1001 – 8700(2012)05-0048-08
【About the authors】WANG Yongfeng, assistant researcher, Ph.D., OUC Development and Planning Office; ZHANG Shaogang, researcher, vice secretary of the OUC Party Committee.