UPDATE: Please access my MA thesis about this topic at http://reganmian.net/top-level-courses. It is much more up-to-date than this presentation. This is a presentation I gave at the OpenCourseWare Consortium conference at Rice University in February 2009. I am sorry, during the first period this slidecast was up, the synchronization wasn't working. I got help from slideshare, and we fixed it. Note that the synch is not perfect, some of the slides show for so short time that the synch tool cannot deal with it, so there's a bit of delay. It catches up on the longer portions though, no biggie. The audio to this presentation is available at http://reganmian.net/files/Chinese%20OCW%20talk%20Houston.mp3. Abstract: Since the MIT OCW program was started in 2002, the OCW movement and idea have spread to many different countries and linguistic contexts. Wonderful innovation, production and research is happening in different countries, and often published in different languages. For the OCW and OER movements to progress, it is imperative that we be able to learn from each other, and bridge these linguistic barriers. China has been one of the most aggressive adopters of the OCW idea. Not only is China Open Resources for Education (CORE) coordinating efforts to translate MIT OCW into Chinese, but the Chinese Ministry of Education has since 2003 been operating a national OCW program called China Quality OpenCourseWare (精品课程). Chinese universities submit proposals, and can receive between $7,300 and $14,600 per course that is made freely available online. By 2007, there were already over 1,100 courses available online, many of these with extensive resources, and video recordings. In addition to this large-scale production OCW, the Chinese scholarly community has also been prolific in researching and publishing about the program. The China Academic Journals database, which provides the full text of over 7,000 Chinese scholarly articles, lists 2,137 articles with the term 精品课程 (China Quality OCW), of which 421 were published in 2008. In numbers, this is roughly equivalent to all the scholarly publication that mention OCW in English and other Latin languages in total - however, the story becomes even more impressive when initial sampling shows that most of the Chinese articles listed mention OCW in their title, and have OCW as their main topic, whereas many of the English language publications are writing about broader issues, and only refer to OCW in passing. I am currently conducting a research project on this wealth of literature. Initially I will try to provide a broad grouping of the Chinese articles on OCW, provide statistics on number of articles in each group (for example: articles that describe the process of producing individual OCW courses, articles that present surveys on student usage, etc), and in what kind of journals these articles appear. My ultimate objective is not only to gain a good understanding of the state of research around the Chinese Quality OCW program, but also identify specific journal articles that provide theoretical models, methodological approaches or accounts of experiences that are very relevant and useful to the North-American research on OER and OCW. In my presentation, I will give a brief overview of the history and current state of China Quality OpenCourseWare, how it is funded, produced, and used, and also how it interacts with the Chinese translations of for example MIT OCW. I will give an overview over the “state of research”, both in terms of poignant research questions, methodologies and also relevant findings, from the Chinese context. I will also argue for a more integrated research roadmap for OCWs in North America, that actively engages with researchers and the literature from around the world.

1. OCWC Regional Meeting, Rice University, February 6, 2009
Global Concept, Local Practices: State of the
Research on OpenCourseWare in Chinese
Stian Håklev, University of Toronto
shaklev@gmail.com
http://reganmian.net/blog
Creative Commons BY 3.0
Monday, February 9, 2009

2. Outline
MIT OCW in China
China Quality
OpenCourseWare
The Research
Monday, February 9, 2009

3. Acknowledgment
Wang Wenjun ( )
Educational researcher at Northwest
Normal University
Monday, February 9, 2009

4. Chinese context Massification of higher education (number
of students in higher education from
850,000 in 1978 to 13 million in 2002)
Increased diversification of higher
education
Good internet infrastructure
Strong position of Chinese language
Strong background in distance education
Monday, February 9, 2009

5. Bringing the idea to China
MIT and IETF organized OCW conference
with Jiaotong University in Beijing.
As a result, 12 universities wrote the
government to petition for a program of
OpenCourseWare in China.
As a result: CORE and CQOCW
Monday, February 9, 2009

6. MIT OCW into
Chinese
China Open Resources for Education
(CORE) translating MIT materials to
Chinese. 245 courses by the end of
2007.
(OOPS also does this in Taiwan)
Monday, February 9, 2009

7. CORE main
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8. Ex of Chin OCW
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9. Motivation
Internationalization
Modernization
Increase quality of teaching
Borrow foreign teaching
theories, methods and content
Foreign classes have more
progressive teaching, more
stimulating, research based,
questioning - we want to
adopt that
Increase collaboration
between our institutions and
foreign institutions
Monday, February 9, 2009

10. Issues and
questions
Hundreds of MIT courses used in Chinese
universities?
Examples? What material is used,
how is it used, why is it used, what are the
outcomes?
More than 150 comparative book-length
studies published comparing MIT
curriculum with Chinese curriculum.
Availability? Findings?
“Before, we received foreign learning material, and
we could only find out what they were teaching.
Now, with OCW, we can also see how they are
teaching, and get an understanding of the entire
process of teaching, and this is very valuable to our
educational research.”
Monday, February 9, 2009

11. Chinese Quality
OpenCourseWare
( )
Centrally funded and promoted
by Chinese Ministry of Education
Three levels - national, provincial/
city, university
First round from 2003-2007,
second round just started
More than thousand national
level courses, as many as 10,000
courses in total.
A large amount of research
published.
Monday, February 9, 2009

12. MOE JPKC
Monday, February 9, 2009

13. Quality Project
( )
CQOCW is a key part of the Quality Project,
but it’s not the only part:
The program targets 1000 universities with 10
million FT students, and will cost approximately
USD $365 million.
Targets:
Help 3000 professors and administrators to
develop peer training exchanges
Select 1000 national-level teaching teams
Give awards to 500 top national teachers
Develop
500 experimental teaching centers
500 individual talent development and
creativity areas
500 high quality bilingual classes
Monday, February 9, 2009

14. zhiliang gongcheng
Monday, February 9, 2009

15. Purpose of CQOCW
Expanding access to higher education
never mentioned in the literature.
The purpose is to increase the quality of
undergraduate courses, with new
pedagogics, new technology and
updated, cutting-edge content.
Course teams - senior
subject experts, junior faculty
and web designers
University-level awards for
good courses
Effects
on local team
trickle down effect on local university
on peers
Monday, February 9, 2009

16. Lanzhou City University School gave certain amount of funding
case study Clear philosophy:
Construction of CQOCW will improve quality of
Have already been evaluating best courses all courses
internally since 2003. Developed system of Not just about putting old courses online, but
indicators of course quality rethink content, teaching methodology, etc.
Issue announcement, meeting of heads of Internal committee to evaluate courses, then
departments invited 20 external experts - used online
material, also sat in on classes
Teaching committee to identify basic and
advanced courses they could apply for In the end, 11 courses were selected for
provincial CQOCW
Brought teachers together with computer
department ( , )
Monday, February 9, 2009

17. meeting jpkc
Monday, February 9, 2009

18. Honor JPKC diploma
Monday, February 9, 2009

19. so what does that look
like look like?
So what does it
Monday, February 9, 2009

20. CORE JPKC Chinese
Monday, February 9, 2009

21. Jingpinke main
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22. Jingpinke course
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23. course 3 from p
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24. course 1 p1
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25. course 1 p2
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26. course 1 p3
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27. course 1 p4
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28. course 1 p5
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29. course 4 intro
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30. course 2 p2
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31. course 5 extensive
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32. course 5 p2
Monday, February 9, 2009

33. JPKC textbook
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34. Monday, February 9, 2009

35. course 5 discforum
Monday, February 9, 2009

36. course 5 discforum2
Monday, February 9, 2009

37. CORE translating
CQOCW to English
Application form to translate JPKC to English
You need to do it yourself or supervise someone who can.
It is peer reviewed by a different institution.
CORE subsidizes about $1,250 for the work..
Monday, February 9, 2009

38. CORE english
Monday, February 9, 2009

39. CORE law
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40. Research
Monday, February 9, 2009

41. Journals
Large number of educational
journals, especially within
distance education and online
learning - even one specialized
on open education.
Monday, February 9, 2009

42. CAJ 1
Monday, February 9, 2009

43. CAJ 2
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44. CAJ numbers big
Monday, February 9, 2009

45. Approaches
Classification of different ways of collaborating
with MIT.
Comparison 14 CQOCWs and 22 MIT OCWs in
biology. Results: more classroom activity in MIT.
MIT materials tied better together.
Analysis of all CQOCW courses as
representatives of university courses in China to
see how many embed practical components.
Results: in 2007 new criteria around practical
components were introduced, which increased
practical components a lot
Beijing City CQOCW evaluation with external
evaluators, through questionnaires, site visits and
case studies. Results: educators use it to prepare
for class, students: 40% related to current studies,
but also high school prepare for/choose
university, and interest.
Monday, February 9, 2009

46. Evaluation of
new courses
A study of the evaluation criteria over the conditions for practical components
five years. online education environment
instructional design
5 primary and 15 secondary indicators. instructional approach
Weighted, totalling 100 points: instructional practice
instructional outcomes - evaluation by
responsible person and main lecturer peers, by university supervisor, by students,
the composition and quality of teaching
evaluation of recorded materials
team
educational reform and educational
research Added more focus on instructional design,
the course content pedagogy, use of technology, impact and
the organization and planning of the course sharing. and building local guidance teams
content
the practical components
teaching material and other resources
Monday, February 9, 2009

47. student eval
Monday, February 9, 2009

48. jpkc meeting
Monday, February 9, 2009

49. Criticisms
Name doesn’t
reflect content
Top professors
won’t share
content
Courses chosen based
on professors, not
quality
Too much spent on
design - “going through
the motions”
Needs to be long-term and
sustainable
Monday, February 9, 2009

50. Issues and
questions
No common technical platform
Doesn’t use Creative Commons or other
open license
Not much known about reuse and adaptation
Many servers unavailable (as many as half, according
to one report)
How is it used by students?
What are the plans going forward?
Does it really have an impact of teaching? On who?
On the initial creator? On the creator’s campus?
On peers?
Monday, February 9, 2009

51. Thank you
Please contact me for information/questions.
This is an ongoing project.
shaklev@gmail.com
http://reganmian.net/blog
Monday, February 9, 2009

52. Image credits
• Flickr: Brian Jeffery Beggerly (Great Wall), Arthur Tsao
(picture; outline), MK Media Productions (Lord of the Rings
Tower in Shanghai), shonk (Studying...), (Growing
China), Andreanna (Question Mark- Day 35/365), aussiegal
(Exclamation Mark), kevindooley (Reflections), alexandralee
(back when i studied chinese), tomt6788 (Abstract Colorful
Universe Wallpaper - TTdesign), woodleywonderworks
(cosmic soap bubbles (God takes a bath)), Wonderlane (The
Road to Perdition), jlcwalker (Binoculars - a working
collection) and katinalynn (nuclear slide)!
Monday, February 9, 2009