Page 111 - Open and Distance Education In Asia : Good Practice From AAOU Members

Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU) 91

The Rise of Regional Alliances RESEARCH FINDINGS IN THE PAST FIVE
As more and more universities and institutions YEARS
became involved in the construction Over the past five years, good progress has
of MOOCs, regional alliances began to been made in open and distance education
emerge, to promote the development and in China in the fields of both research and
management of quality MOOC resources. practice. This section briefly introduces some
Among these alliances, some are national typical research projects and action plans.
ones, such as MOOC China Alliance, others are
regional, like Open Online Courses Alliance Construction of National Quality Open
of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Online Courses
Bay Area, still others are cross-regional, The positive involvement of the government
such as WEMOOC Alliance, and some even is a key feature of the development of
focus on education of a specific discipline, MOOCs in China. The Program of “National
for example, MOOC Alliance on Computer Quality Open Online Courses” are an
Education for Chinese Universities. Those important measure for the government
alliances attracted more 100 universities to boost MOOC construction. In 2015, the
from China, promoted the development Ministry of Education issued a document
of MOOC for the participating university to encourage and guide universities to
and provided organizational support for develop open online courses (Ministry of
the social service function of MOOC. At the Education, 2015). The document proposed a
same time, the emergence of these alliances plan to build national exquisite online open
laid an organizational foundation for the courses. In 2017, the Ministry of Education
sharing of inter-university course resources started the national recognition of quality
and advanced credit transfer. Besides, the courses. Each year, a batch of excellent open
inter-university sharing of course resources online courses are recognized. In 2019, the
has mitigated the unbalanced distribution recognition of national quality online courses
of higher education resources, benefitting was inscribed in the new action plan, i.e., the
some relatively under-developed Western “double 10,000 plan” for the construction of
universities. However, there are still first-class undergraduate courses (Ministry
problems. When organizational structures of Education, 2019). The plan sets out the
become complicated, management and goal of offering more than 10,000 first-class
operation will be a challenge. undergraduate courses over three years,
including the construction of about 4,000
first-class online courses. The first-class online
courses mentioned here refer to national
quality open online courses. In November
2020, the first batch of 1,875 national quality
undergraduate courses were recognized
(Ministry of Education, 2020). At present, the
second batch of course accreditation work is
also under way.

The Open University of China (OUC)