A nine-member delegation of the Open University of China (OUC) led by President Yang Zhijian participated in the 24th ICDE World Conference on Open and Distance Learning under the theme of "Expanding Horizons—New Approaches to Open and Distance Learning (ODL)" between 2-5 October 2011, in the Island of Bali, Indonesia. The Conference focuses on issues related to the role of ODL at the leading edge of online learning paradigm from organizing distance education

to building knowledge-based society. This theme includes promoting education for all as part of widening education opportunities, managing ODL for global network information and communication, and public ownership of ODL.

The ICDE (International Council for Open and Distance Education) World Conference is the largest conference in the field of open and distance education, and is held every two years. This year, the 24th ICDE World Conference was hosted by Universitas Terbuka (UT) with 6 keynote speeches, 212 paper presentations and 602 participants from 49 countries and regions around the world. There were 4 plenary sessions, 5 symposiums and 5 parallel sessions held during the conference. The OUC was a silver sponsor of this year's conference.

The conference focused on "New Approaches to Open and Distance Learning (ODL)", with the sub-themes of "ODL and human capacity building", "ODL in a changing world", "Quality and ODL—the way forward", "Management and strategic development of ODL", "Open Educational Resources (OER) in a global world" and "International development and distance learning" for the parallel sessions.

Guo Qingchun, Li Song and Zhao Tingting also attended different parallel sessions. Professor Liu Dailin was invited to the panel discussion on "Open Educational Resources (OER) in a Global World".

During the conference, President Yang Zhijian was announced one of the members of the new ICDE Executive Committee. He exchanged ideas and communicated with academics and researchers, administrators and practitioners from open universities and heads of distance education organizations around the world. Dr. Frits Pannekoek (President of ICDE), Prof. Tian Belawati (Chairman of the Organizing Committee), Prof. Barney Pityana (Former Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of South Africa) and Ms. Denise Kirkpatrick (Pro-Vice Chancellor of Learning, Teaching, and Quality of the Open University of United Kingdom) all congratulated the OUC on its new system which will be put into operation later this year following its renaming in 2009. They also extended their best wishes for the bright future of the OUC.

The 25th ICDE World Conference will be held in 2013 in Tianjin, China, hosted by Tianjin Radio and TV University.

Zhou Jinlan, the OUC