The selection of the “Seventh Beijing Teaching Achievement Awards for Higher Education” held jointly by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, Beijing Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, and Beijing Finance Burean recently announced that among the eight results provided for evaluation by the OUC,

three were granted first or second prize. “The Construction and Practice of a Public Service System for Distance Education” by Yang Zhijian and Yan Bing, and “Practice and Innovation for the National Unified Examination Computer-based Test as Part of Modern Distance Education Public Elementary Courses” by Yan Jichang and Guo Qingchun (submitted together with Tsinghua University and other universities), both won first prize. “Innovating the ‘6N51’ Civil-military Education System: The Search for a Distance Education Model for Military Leaders” by Zhang Shaogang and Yang Yangshen, won second prize.

The Beijing teaching achievement awards are an important move for the Beijing Municipal Government in implementing its strategy of revitalizing education through human resources development. They represent the achievements of personnel training work and educational reform, and embody the advanced level of Beijing teaching work. Furthermore, the awards encourage many teachers to carry out teaching research to enhance continuously their teaching level and educational quality. The first prize winners will be recommended to take part in the selection of national teaching achievements award.

The selection of the “9th National Outstanding Research Achievements for Adult Education” organized by China Adult Education Association was also announced recently. The OUC won 18 prizes. Among them, four of the OUC’s achievements won first or second prize in the excellent research reports category, including “Research Report on the Development of Chinese Distance Higher Education (2012)” and “Research Report on the OUC’s Online Learning Assessment”. 14 of the OUC’s achievements won first, second or third prize in the thesis category, including “Research on China’s Open University System and Mechanism”, and “The Assessment, Accreditation and Management of Lifelong Learning”. This activity demonstrated research achievements in adult (continuing) education and helped to promote the adult (continuing) education cause, and also to enhance mass research’s level and quality of adult (continuing) education in our country. 

By Lu Feng, the OUC