Open Educational Resources in India and China:

Re-shaping Periphery and Core?

Kirk Perris & Stian Håklev

Outline of Presentation

• Background & Objectives– Personal & Professional

• Issues at hand– The position of the

university– Definitions: Creative

Commons, Open Educational Resources

– What is happening in the developing world?

• China• India

• Conclusions• Q&A

Background & Objectives

Background & Objectives

Background & Objectives

Issues athand

Issues athand• The globalization of the

university and/or the democratization of knowledge (core-periphery model, Altbach, 2001)

• Online learning/access is growing exponentially

• The evolution of “open” in higher education (e.g. The Open University)

Open Educational Resources, OpenCourseWare

Globalization/democratization of the university

• China’s higher education population was only 50,000 in 1976 – today it stands at 25 million

• China – 25 million students• India’s higher education

population has also grown; it stands at about 13 million

The globalization of the university

Online learning

• China – 25 million students• India – 13 million students• Internet users:

– China 253 million– India 80 million

• Universities are increasingly embracing online learning as a means to widen access (China’s Modern Distance Education Project, Indira Gandhi National Open U)

Open learning

&

Online learning

• China – 25 million students• India – 13 million students• Internet users:

– China 250 million– India 70 million

• Universities, online learning and access

• Access Open Educational Resources

Open learning

&

Open Educational Resources

• History of OER– Background in Open Source,

open content, Creative Commons

– OpenCourseWare as one manifestation

– Began with MIT, now 30+ countries, including China

Open Educational Resources

• The situation in China– China Open Resources for

Education, translates MIT courses into Chinese

CORE main

Ex of Chin OCW

Open Educational Resources

• China Quality OpenCourseWare

– Run by the Chinese Ministry of Education

– Selected course teams get up to $13,000 to make their course available online for free for five years

– Already over 1,000 national level courses, and as many as 10,000 provincial and campus-level courses

Jingpinke course

course 1 p1

OER in China

• Video• We need to understand the

impact better.• Uses for Western institutions:

comparative educational research, translating and making available (make the flow of knowledge two-ways)

• A different case: India

What is happening in India

IGNOU - details

• Established in 1985• Enrolment of 1.8 million• Has campuses in 35

countries• Headquarters in Delhi• Re-started online

initiatives in 2008 egyankosh (holds 90% of IGNOU’s courses)

Overview of IGNOU• Some examples from the egyankosh website:

Overview of IGNOU• Some examples from the egyankosh YouTube channel:

Overview of IGNOU• egyankosh YouTube channel (over 1000 videos online) • Similar to the MIT

OpenCourseWare YouTube channel

• Distinct from China in that these are grassroots initiatives, no governing body, not based on MIT OCW

What might be the implications?

- What is the purpose of higher learning – social, economic, political, cultural?

- Who is using Open Courseware?- How might the implementation of OCW enhance

teaching? Improve learning? Address accreditation? “Promote” the institution? Democratize learning?

- How does the use of OCW interact with core-periphery models of the university? Might OCWs enhance homogeneity of the university (institutionalism) or enable the non-western academy to widen its knowledge and presence nationally, regionally and globally (pluralism)?

- The limitations of Web 1.0, the benefits of Web 2.0

谢谢

धन्यवा�द

Thank you