China Open Resources for Education

The China Open Resources for Education (CORE) is a non-profit organization. Its mission is to promote closer interaction and open sharing of educational resources between Chinese and international universities, which CORE envisions as the future of world education.

CORE aims to provide Chinese universities with free and easy access to global open educational resources.

CORE is a consortium of universities that began with 26 IET Educational Foundation member universities and 44 China Radio and TV Universities), with a total enrollment of 5 million students.

CORE has received approval and support for its activities from the China Ministry of Education (MOE).

CORE was established in November 2003 following an MIT OpenCourseWare Conference in Beijing.

CORE provides framework for Chinese-speaking universities to participate in the shared, global network of advanced courseware with MIT and other leading universities, and enhances the quality of education in China.

See also: OpenCourseWare

Mission

The mission of CORE is to:

• Coordinate use of opencourseware from MIT and other universities within China
• Enhance the quality of education in China
• Offer Chinese opencourseware for sharing globally

Objectives

CORE’s objective is to build a wide network of users and content:

• 500 to 1000 universities, educational institutions, and industrial partners
• 10 to 20 million users
• More than 5,000 courses, modules, or subject items
• Free access via Internet and existing satellite networks

Strategy

• Participation of lead universities, member universities, government, and industry
• Self-supporting, sustainable organization and operation within five years
• Guidance received from two boards:
  • Executive board
  • Advisory boards

Programs

• 12 lead universities
• Initial base of 70 member universities
• Translation and localization of materials
• Chinese and English Web sites within China
• Training and seminars
• Annual meeting (Sept 1-4, 2004 in Shanghai)
• Project grants (1/3 funding from CORE, 1/3 from the university, and 1/3 from outside sponsors)

12 Lead universities

12 Chinese institutions take the lead in CORE

• Shared commitment to CORE’s vision and work
• Use of CORE OCW materials in minimum of 5 courses
• Translation of MIT (or other) materials into Chinese (by professors)
• 1-2 full-time staff working on CORE activities
• Lead person (VP or dean for academic affairs) champions CORE in the university
• Perform study of the benefits and shortcomings of Chinese course materials and international OCW materials
• Host CORE conferences or seminars to exchange experiences with other universities

Benefits to lead universities

• Recognition
• Attraction to students and faculty
• Enhanced value

Lead Universities

• Peking University
• Tsinghua University
• Beijing Jiaotong University
• Dalian University of Technology
• Shanghai Jiaotong University
• Xi'an Jiaotong University
• Central South University
• Nanjing University
• Sichuan University
• Harbin University^{[disambiguation needed ]}
• 2 CRTV Universities (out of 44)

CORE member universities

Benefits

• Start on the road to become a CORE leading university
• Attend CORE international conferences at member rate
• Contribute to, and benefit from, translation quality-assurance and feedback program
• Participate on discipline and subject committees
• Eligible to have quality course materials included, per review of discipline committee
• Eligible to apply for grants for annual projects
• Host CORE seminars
• Have a presence on CORE’s Web site to introduce themselves and their work in CORE

Obligations

• Agree with CORE’s objective and mission
• Pay yearly 20,000 yuan membership fee
• Show faculty and student participation/use of materials

Translation and localization

Quality of translations monitored by “discipline committees”

• Courses
• Industrial partner materials
• Discipline-area or college programs

See also

• Higher education in China
• OpenCourseWare in China
• International Research And Training Centre For Rural Education

References

• Overview
• Organization

External links

• Official website of CORE
• eChina UK Programme