Conclusion

In this chapter, I have systematically compared the Top-Level Courses Project with the MIT OpenCourseWare model, using the typology of Open Educational Resources proposed in chapter 2, and found that the Top-Level Courses Project fit into the first category, transformative production, and MIT OpenCourseWare fit into the third category, reuse, whereas they shared the last category, consultation/transparency. I then suggested two different ways of conceptualizing MIT OpenCourseWare to ask how MIT OpenCourseWare might have had an influence on the development of Top-Level Courses Project. I concluded that it could not have had much influence as a norm, but possibly as a policy innovation. 

I went on to document how the project has been grossly misunderstood outside of China, and used the theories of policy borrowing introduced in chapter two to explain how this had happened. Finally, I introduced the concept of policy networks to explain both the spread of the OpenCourseWare model to other East Asian countries, and to the establishment of China Open Resources for Education in China. In the next chapter, I will suggest that there is a fundamental difference between the ways professors and course development are conceptualized in China and North America, which makes the Top-Level Courses Project model difficult to implement in North America, and conclude the thesis.