It was in September 2003 at the International OpenCourseWare Forum in Beijing that a group of attendees including Prof Dick K.P. Yue, Ms Ann Margulies, Dr Catherine Casserly, Dr Marshall Smith, representatives of 26 IET member universities, presidents of 67 pilot universities for long-distance education and administrators from 44 China Radio and TV Universities decided that they could meet the opportunity and the challenge presented with a powerful movement, which would promote closer interaction and open sharing of educational resources between China and the world. This movement was called China Open Resources for Education (CORE) and it was inspired, initiated and supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE) and all the member universities in China and abroad.

CORE's objective is to introduce high-quality courseware from top-ranked universities around the world employing innovative technologies, methodologies and content for teaching and learning. Its mission focuses on providing a framework for Chinese-speaking universities to participate in the shared, global network of courseware with leading universities for all over the world and to assist in making the use of open educational resources more global and mainstream. CORE has developed cooperative relationships with many international partners including the Monterey Institution for Technology and Education (MITE) and Stanford University.

In China, the demand for OCW in universities is increasing rapidly, however the charges and restrictions on overseas website access by the China Education and Research Network (CERN) had been hindering the growth of use from students and universities. For this reason, a local MIT Open CourseWare (MIT OCW) mirror site is used as a solution to meet the fast growing demand in China. CORE member universities have established 7 mirror sites in different areas of China in an effort to promote open educational resources in urban, rural and remote areas in China.

In 2008, the total number of Chinese Quality OpenCourseWare (TLCP) made available online exceed 1,800 at the national level, 5,000 at the provincial level and 10,000 at the university level. The TLCP includes course notes, syllabus, assignments, lectures in audio or video format among others. The courses are translated into Mandarin with the help of expert translators for use by Chinese universities. Chinese member universities have also translated many TLCP into English on topics such as Architecture, Chemistry, Electronics, Medicine and Geography to share with other universities internationally. 

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Carson

In 2004 collaboration between the Chinese Ministry of Education and MIT's translation partner CORE would lead to the launch of the China Quality OpenCourseWare project, an effort to openly publish the best courses from across the Chinese higher education system. By mid-2005, materials from more than 500 Chinese courses were available through the CORE site. This collection of courseware has now grown to over 1600 total courses, some of which are now being translated into English by the CORE team.

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Wiley 

In China 451 courses have been made available by 176 university members of the China Open Resources for Education (CORE) consortium. (http://www.core.org.cn/cn/TLCP/index_en.html).