In a recent evaluation of online open courses by the Ministry of Education (MOE), a total of 801 courses were recognised. One of these was the Android Smart Phone Programming course of Professor Wang Li of the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the Open University of China (OUC).

The MOE began its evaluations in July 2018, aiming to promote online open courses in China, the use of information technology in teaching, and the reform of both higher and continuing education. 801 courses nationwide ended up being selected out of more than 2,400 recommended by education administrators of various levels to the MOE.

Android Smart Phone Programming mainly targets beginners or those with basic training, along with developers and programming enthusiasts interested in undertaking software development for mobile devices. The course teaches the basics of smartphone programming on the Android system and its development environment and tools, giving students the ability to design and develop Android applications and a good foundation for further growth in this area.

This course is "task-driven" and guided by the principle of “learning through application”. Lectures and outlines of key points are organically combined, and students learn in small steps from actual cases. Mr. Chen Junfeng, the chief editor and lecturer of the course team, is a senior engineer at Beijing Jingdong Shangke Technology and a famous blogger on CSDN, a well-known technology website in China. The course team constantly adjusts and updates its resources to meet the needs of learners and keeps its offerings fresh. The course is information-based, and integrates "guidance, learning, training and evaluation," emphasizing the central role of learners in their own education, and helping them self-evaluate and self-correct. The course has also been selected to train junior programmers by some IT companies.

By Wang Qian, OUC