From 4-6th July 2018, a delegation comprised of five people from the Open University of China (OUC) visited Hong Kong to attend the International Conference on Open and Innovative Education (ICOIE) 2018 sponsored by the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK).

The OUHK has held the ICOIE for five consecutive years since 2014. The 2018 conference attracted over 100 scholars from more than 10 countries and regions. Six distinguished scholars including Asha Kanwar, chair of the Commonwealth of Learning, and Alan Tait, professor emeritus of the Open University, UK gave keynote speeches. There were six sub-forums with themes of open educational resources, MOOCs, learning analytical technology, the appliancation of social media in education, course design, and teacher development.

Five OUC delegates were invited to give academic speeches at the sub-forums. Zhang Manyin from the OUC Education Research Institute and Li Guangde from the OUC Faculty of Agroforestry and Medicine delivered a report on the progress, achievements, experience, learner characteristics, and problems of the OUC “One College Student Per Village” programme. Han Yanhui, Associate Professor of the OUC Faculty of International Languages and Cultures presented a report on the teaching reform research of the “Trans-Regional and One-Stop Online Tutoring Model” that he and the teaching team from the Computer Assisted English Language Learning course are engaging in. Wang Xiangxu from the OUC Education Research Institute reported on the OUC industrial workers educational projects and talked about its achievements and challenges. Cui Naipeng from the OUC President’s Office made a report on research in the field of OUC learner support service. The speeches given by the OUC delegates introduced the theoretical explorations and practical innovations the OUC has undertaken in the field of open and distance education, which demonstrated the experience, achievements, methods, and models OUC has in open and distance learning, and has received positive attention and aroused enthusiastic discussions from the other attending scholars.

During the conference, Wang Xiangxu from the OUC Education Research Institute met and exchanged views with OUUK vice president Prof. Kwan Ching Ping and Dr. Li Kam Cheong, director of the OUUK Research Office, with regard to issues of cooperative research and co-sponsoring academic seminar in Beijing in October.

By Wang Xiangxu, OUC