In June 2022, the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the Open University of China (OUC) launched the AI-Empowered English Smart Teaching Reform Project.

This initiative aims to explore the application of artificial intelligence in offering personalized learning paths for large-scale open education English learners. Recently, the OUC held the Smart Teaching Seminar and AI-Empowered English Smart Teaching Reform Pilot Summary Event in Haikou City, Hainan Province. During this event, representatives from open universities nationwide engaged in a dynamic discussion on achieving new breakthroughs in teaching and learning amidst the ongoing digital transformation from diverse perspectives.

In the "President's Forum" session of the seminar, leaders from the seven participating branches discussed their viewpoints on the theme, "Role of Open Education in Building a Digitally Advanced Country."

Zhan Xingwen, Vice President of Hainan Open University

The Hainan Branch has highlighted three key areas through which it intends to contribute to the development of a digitally advanced nation:

The Hainan Branch is committed to enhancing digital governance by establishing a well-defined framework for the application and development of digital technologies. This initiative aims to align the activities of teaching, research, management, and other sectors with the requirements of digital governance. Actively promoting the creation of a smart campus, the branch is focused on developing a comprehensive and personalized smart platform for teachers and students. This effort is geared towards optimizing the school's workflow, thereby achieving greater efficiency.

Secondly, the Hainan Branch is dedicated to enhancing digital governance in rural revitalisation efforts. It has set up the "Hainan Rural Revitalisation and Digital Governance Laboratory," recognised as one of the province's nine pivotal laboratories. The laboratory's primary goal is to cultivate top-tier research teams focused on rural revitalization. It actively engages in providing strategic research, offering consultative advice, facilitating talent development, and promoting effective communication and awareness.

Thirdly, the branch focuses on enhancing talent quality and recruitment to foster a skilled workforce for digital governance. The Hainan Branch has emphasised the recruitment of talented individuals, particularly targeting the enhancement of teachers' digital literacy. Future plans include the reinforcement of digital culture development, the adoption of advanced AI-generated content technology, the implementation of AI-based classroom teaching evaluation systems, and the establishment of smart classrooms and virtual training rooms. These initiatives aim to elevate teachers' digital thinking, skills, and literacy.

Zhang Yanqing, President of Xi'an Open University

Zhang Yanqing highlighted several key aspects of building a digitally advanced open university:

Firstly, he underscored the significance of comprehensive education services that are in harmony with the goals of socialist modernization and the mission to serve the Party and the country. Providing education that meets the needs and expectations of the people should be the foremost priority in development.

Secondly, he emphasised the importance of bolstering the network system for lifelong education, capitalizing on the strengths and unique features of the Open University system. This approach is essential for contributing to lifelong learning and the development of a society and country deeply committed to education.

Thirdly, this process includes fostering a digital-oriented mindset within the team and developing a robust digital team system. The Xi'an Branch is diligently progressing toward setting up a future study centre, exemplifying this vision.

Fourthly, he addressed the shift towards human-computer interaction in education, emphasising the need to explore innovative modes of learning interaction. These modes should focus on personalization and offer real-time feedback, highlighting their significance in the educational landscape.

He also emphasised the significance of utilizing regional characteristics and culture in developing a digital platform. This platform would offer a unique learning experience intimately connected to the city of Xi'an.

Chen Junping, Vice President of Hebei Open University

Chen Junping noted that, in our march towards the new era, the Open University system must accelerate its transformation and build a digital university that connects globally.

Upgrading digitalisation is an essential step in enhancing the quality of teaching. The AI-Empowered English Smart Teaching Reform allows the system's English teachers to boost their research skills and teaching effectiveness. This is achieved by exploring the practical applications of smart education in their subject area. Such advancements significantly contribute to elevating the university's overall intelligence level, aligning with the goal of fostering excellence and improving quality. By effectively harnessing artificial intelligence technology, the approach encourages deep and personalized learning. This facilitates the precise and effective development of English education and teaching. Furthermore, this approach highlights the unique qualities of the Open University as a modern institution of higher education. It underscores the university's commitment to improving digitalisation levels and the quality of teaching and learning, while promoting open education across the nation.

Secondly, the ultimate goal in enhancing teaching quality is to adopt a student-centric approach. Open education represents an adaptable, inclusive, and diverse model of education for society at large. It places students' needs at the forefront, leveraging information technology and modern educational methods to offer more flexible, autonomous, and personalized learning modes and services. By harnessing digital technologies to empower student learning, we can shift from standardized education to personalized learning. This shift enables innovative developments in learning approaches, with the aim of fostering lifelong learning and supporting students' career development. Therefore, in this new era, faced with diverse learning needs, it's essential to adhere to the principles of student growth and cognition. We must design more adaptable learning programmes and forge a new paradigm of data-driven, tailored learning.

To foster the high-quality development of the Open University, we need to embrace a student-centric approach, dedicated to serving lifelong education. This involves promoting the creation of a learning society and delivering open education that aligns with public expectations.

Chen Shu, Vice President of Ningbo Open University

In implementing the strategy for excellence and quality improvement in open education, the leaders at OUC headquarters have consistently emphasised that the content of open education training programmes should be tailored to student needs, practical, and easy to learn. We should adopt a curriculum development and implementation approach that is oriented towards real work tasks, addresses real problems, and incorporates systematic thinking. This approach will promote teaching methods that are inspirational, inquiry-based, participatory, and case-based, with the aim of stimulating and sustaining students' motivation to learn, while enhancing their learning abilities and effectiveness.

It is crucial to fully utilize technical resources like big data and artificial intelligence. By deeply exploring the educational applications of new technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence, we can create a new, networked, immersive, and intelligent model. This model will significantly improve the capacity and quality of digital learning support services. Concurrently, it's important to strengthen the management of the digital teaching process and establish robust quality monitoring mechanisms. Doing so will help unlock the value of data and ensure the highest standards of educational delivery.

This year, the Ningbo Branch has made significant strides in digital teaching reform within open education. Firstly, we have completed the development of shared teaching materials in cooking technology and nutrition, featuring a total of 5,000 minutes of video content across 8 courses. Students have the convenience of scanning QR codes to access and learn from these materials alongside their paper-based resources. Secondly, we have introduced virtual simulation experiments for our professional engineering courses. This includes setting up a physical simulation centre and a cloud-based simulation training room. Moreover, we've provided portable equipment to ensure easy access to our digital teaching and learning process. This portable equipment is also configured to support on-site teaching at enterprises and other off-campus locations, further enhancing our educational outreach and flexibility.

The smart teaching reform initiated by the Foreign Language Teaching Department has adopted a human-computer interaction approach with real-time feedback, significantly improving students' language skills. This method has been well received by both teachers and students. Moving forward, we aim to further accelerate the integration of these technologies into teaching and management. Our goal is to effectively drive digital reform, enhancing students' knowledge and skills, their learning experience, accessibility to education, and the efficiency of school management services.

Liu Shaoying, Vice President of Guangxi Open University

As the permanent host of the China-ASEAN Expo, Nanning in Guangxi is actively promoting the development of a digital infrastructure platform with ASEAN countries, establishing the China-ASEAN Digital Silk Road. Open education has immense potential in fostering educational, economic, and cultural exchanges between China and ASEAN countries. It can significantly contribute to the China-ASEAN community of shared destiny. This can be achieved through the establishment of the China-ASEAN Joint Open University, which aims to unify open education with open universities in ASEAN countries. This integration is facilitated through digitalisation and informatisation, and is further strengthened by the mutual recognition of qualifications.

Based on the current economic development model of China-ASEAN, cooperation in higher education is increasingly shifting its focus towards cultivating vocational talent with an emphasis on application-oriented and skill-based capabilities. With the advancement of 5G mobile communications, big data, and artificial intelligence technologies, and their rapidly accelerating applications, the capacity for distance online education in terms of platform and technical support, resource development and integration, as well as application and management services, has seen significant improvements. The open and shared education concept championed by the OUC is also internationally recognised and respected. By implementing vocational education through distance online open education, adopting a more flexible cooperation mechanism, and establishing the China-ASEAN Joint Open University, deeper and more effective cooperation in higher education between China and ASEAN can be readily achieved.

Zhao Guojun, Assistant to the President of Liaoning Open University

Zhao Guojun said facing a digital China, open education needs to innovate in the following areas:

First, optimise the structure of programmes. To align with the needs of the digital economy and social development, it's essential to establish new programmes in fields like engineering, business, and liberal arts. Additionally, traditional programmes should be digitally transformed and upgraded.

Second, we must transform the mindset surrounding education. It's essential to fully empower education through digital technology, moving away from a "large-scale standardized education" approach towards "large-scale personalized learning.".

Third, focus on innovating teaching methods. Encourage innovation fueled by digital technology in education and teaching scenarios. This includes enriching adaptive learning, implementing intelligent diagnosis of learning conditions, enhancing intelligent classroom evaluations, and broadening the application of other similar scenarios. Aim to foster a deeper integration and interaction between online and offline classrooms. Additionally, prioritize the widespread adoption and use of intelligent systems, intelligent teaching assistants, and smart learning companions. Innovate in developing learner-centric teaching models, ensuring they are tailored to meet the evolving needs of students.

Fourth, there should be a focus on innovating educational content, with a priority on literacy and competencies, as well as on the cultivation of digital literacy and skills. In terms of content organisation, it is essential to establish a digital knowledge map that is grounded in systematic knowledge points and logical relationships. Additionally, setting up cross-disciplinary learning themes is crucial to address the barriers between disciplines, the insufficient articulation between different educational segments, and the inconsistencies between knowledge and skills. Regarding content presentation, leveraging technologies such as augmented reality and virtual simulation can significantly enhance students' experiential learning.

Fifth, significantly enhance teachers' digital literacy. Persistently advance the initiative to improve teachers' information technology skills, while steadily boosting their understanding and proficiency in digital education.

By OUC