Between February 27-29, 2012, the Constitutive Meeting of the new ICDE Executive Committee was held in Oslo, Norway. The six members of the ICDE Executive Committee and more than 60 leaders from major universities all over Norway were in attendance. As a member of the ICDE Executive Committee and president of the Open University of China (OUC), Dr. Yang Zhijian attended the meeting and delivered a keynote speech.
On February 16, 2012, the Open University of China (OUC) and Centre National d'Enseignement à Distance (CNED) signed an agreement for educational collaboration and exchange at CNED headquarters in Poitiers. According to the agreement, the two parties will cooperate extensively in pursuing distance education initiatives including Chinese and French language instruction, as well as course sharing, resource sharing, and cooperative research and teaching exchange.
On February 20, 2012, Secretary General of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Gard Titlestad visited the OUC Wukesong Distance Education Building in Beijing and had a meeting with OUC President and ICDE Executive Committee member Doctor Yang Zhijian.
Doctor Yang shared with Mr. Titlestad
1. Du Zhanyuan, Deputy Minister of Education, makes a tour of inspection to the OUC
On February 26, 2011, Du Zhanyuan, Deputy Minister and member of the CPC Leading Group of the Ministry of Education, arrived at the Open University of China （OUC） and visited its Distance Reception Centre, Online Q&A Room, Live Classroom, Two-Way Video Distance Monitoring Centre, CRTVU Online Educational Technology Limited and other sectors. The Deputy Minister gave full affirmation to the OUC's achievements over the last three decades
The 6th Confucius Institute Conference was held between December 12-14, 2011 in Beijing. The Chinese Language Center of the OUC (hereinafter referred to as "the Center") attended the conference and set up a booth in the Chinese Language Teaching Materials Exhibition.
During the conference, the Center introduced several products suitable for teaching Chinese at Confucius Institutes, including the "MyEChinese Distance Chinese Teaching System", the New HSK Practice Test System and the Chinese for Children
China's first "eLearning Media Asset Engineer" training programme has been jointly launched by the OUC School of Continuing Education（Training Centre） and Beijing Normal University R&D Center for Digital Learning and Public Education Service Engineering authorized by the Ministry of Education. It is the first certification programme based on the eLearning capacity model.
The first phase of the "eLearning Media Asset Engineer" training programme will be for instructor training and will be held at the OUC Weigongcun Campus. Attendees will learn new concepts and technologies in media asset design and development. Training methods
Between December 2-5, 2011, the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the China Association for Educational Technology (CAET) and National Education Informationization Outlook Forum was held in Guangzhou. Yang Zhijian, chairman of the CAET and president of the Open University of China (OUC), attended the meeting and delivered a work report on behalf of the CAET, in which he reviewed the 20-year history of the association, summarized its achievements and experiences and forecasted future development.
Organized by the Global Universities in Distance Education (GUIDE) Association, the 5th GUIDE International Conference was held between November 18-19, 2011 in Rome, Italy. The theme for this year’s conference was "E-learning innovative models for the integration of education, technology and research". More than 100 experts and scholars from all over the world in the field of distance education participated in the conference.