WLong

For TLCP, openness and sharing is the result of a valuable process, and not the only goals. From beginning to end, the main focus is not on the publishing and sharing of digital resources (course outline, course materials, syllabus, lecture material, recordings, etc), rather this publishing and sharing is used as a lever to promote the integrated development of courses. With the integrated development of courses, we mean two things: First, at the individual course level, TLCP promotes the improvement of educational ideals, teaching team, teaching method and approach, course management and examination, etc. Second, at the national level, TLCP aims to produce a number of top-quality courses that can work as inspirational examples for others, to inspire and promote improvement and reform of all university courses, as well as the increased and improved usage of educational technology, leading to the improvement of course quality.

XXX: Impact: setting up teaching teams, that wasn’t too important before. No problem with just one person teaching. Has to be at least three people involved in a course. Good age spread. To do research on improving teaching, you can’t be just one, you need several people to help you reflect. 

Second goal, lot’s of resources. 

Third: Educational resources, recording etc. Some courses have material used all around China. 

Access: The courses are not to serve society (spread access wider). Only to improve quality. Other things are up to online/distance schools (which cost money). It’s goal is to change teachers, pedagogy in higher ed, not to improve or spread knowledge more widely. 

XXX:

TLCP: Promote some good, mature courses with a long history, or with special characteristics. Promote it to students and teachers at other universities. Students can self-study, “audit” classes, all the material should be available. Profs can also use it.

It’s very important that teachers are able to interact. Different types of universities teach in different ways, for example top research universities teach in one way, normal universities teach in another way. If I am a student at a mid-level university, I might want to know how this class is taught at different types of institutions. If a student from a normal university wants to do his or her graduate work at a research university, they might want to look at the class before they prepare for the exam. 

They hope that good courses should not just serve the local students. The final goal might be to make this material available for distance education, where one can study, get feedback, and get academic credit. We already have such a system, for Xinjiang students. Before they used to come here to listen in on classes, now they can watch this online, and if they pass the exams, they will get the study credits. This doesn’t exist yet, but we hope we can set it up.

This would be a good addition to TLCP, because some universities might not teach certain courses, but students want to study them. Some students might be from different majors, but want to take this course as an elective, but it might collide with some other courses, then they can sign up for the course, but rely on the recordings and the material online. Usually they will still try to come to class once in a while. 

XXX:

TLCP split into three categories, undergrad, vocational and online courses. I am responsible for online courses. From 1999 MoE started online education pilot, then it was called modern distance education, I was in charge. I designed the whole project with TLCP online ed. Improve quality, examplary function. MoE believes in the power of examples to raise the quality of the entire sector. From schools’ point of view, they want to improve the reputation of their school, branding, so they are happy about this kind of competition. From a professor’s perspective, a professor can learn about experiences from other universities, and be inspired to improve his/her own class. 

Three goals, which one is more important? Can’t do it all. Is providing a platform for learning more important for online TLCP than for other TLCP?