This document discusses China's interest in open education practices including open educational resources (OER), massive open online courses (MOOCs), and big data. It provides an overview of the University of Leicester's OER program including courses harvested from iTunes U and their use by Chinese students. Survey results show that Chinese students use these open resources to learn about potential universities and their programs. The document concludes by recommending ways for universities to engage Chinese partners and platforms to increase exposure for their open courses.

1. www.le.ac.uk
China’s interest in Open Education, OER,
MOOCs, and Big Data
Terese Bird
Learning Technologist
& SCORE Research Fellow
Institute of Learning Innovation
University of Leicester

2. What shall we talk about?
• What is Open Educational
Practice and OER?
• Uni of Leicester’s OER
• Chinese Open Course
harvested from iTunes U
• What is China looking at?
• How OER can help Chinese
students choose your
university
• China’s MOOCs
Photo by ToGa Wanderings
on Flickr CC-BY-NC

3. Open Educational Resources (OER and
Open Ed: Their time has come
• Reaching for overseas
students
• Distance learning
• MOOCs (Massive Open Online
Courses)
• OER as ‘soft marketing’
• JISC Factors 2011:
– Financial constraints
– Reputation
– Course marketisation
(McGill, 2011)

4. iTunes U Reach – HEA OER International
Aims & Objectives
• To gather and create high-quality open-licensed learning materials
by University of Leicester for release into iTunes U
• To document and arrange into a framework the procedures and
standards utilised in the choice and preparation of iTunes U OER
• To ascertain how international students who use iTunes U materials
find, select, and view/listen to them, and to discover whether and
how these students make conclusions about the universities that
provide them.
• To inform and listen to University of Leicester academics in
discussion considering how iTunes U may be of use to share out
their materials and message to international students

5. Online Survey N=102 ‘potential students’
(Bird, 2013)

6. Do you use, or have you ever used, iTunes U?’

7. ‘Do you use, or have you ever used, iTunes U?’ –
by country

8. How do/did you select suitable materials?

9. What was your reason for selecting these
materials? (Choose all that apply)

10. Have these materials helped you to
achieve this aim?

11. As a result of your experiences with these
materials, would you consider studying at
the institution that produced them?

12. Leicester’s Multimedia OER
• YouTube channel videos
• Narrated presentations
• Still images or screencasts with
voiceover
• Audio lecture recordings
• Audio research vigniettes
• Ebooks – pdf, epub, .ibooks

13. • http://iite.unesco.org/pics/publications/en/files/3214700.pdf

14. Open Course app
• Netease software company
joined OCW 2011
• Harvest CC-licensed(?) VIDEO
of interest to interns working
at Netease, for OpenCourse
app:
– Western law
– Media / Social Media
– Philosophy / Death
– Kahn Academy
– TED

15. Open Class
Netease

17. Baidu

18. Our university’s OER can encourage
enrollment by Chinese students
• Agents
• League tables
• After being accepted,
students search for
course content and
sample lectures

19. What did China look at on Univ Leicester
iTunes U? 1-10 August, 2013
Subject Video Audio Doc Browse/Subscribe
English 5 5 20
Medicine 13 10 1
History 1 4
Engineering/Programming 2
Psychology 10
Media & Communications 7
Management 4 5
Forensic Science 2
Actuarial Science 6 1
Chemistry 6
Public Lectures 1

20. Final tips for a Chinese Connection
• Post a video on YouTube, embed it on Youku
• Try Sina Weibo, the Chinese Twitter
• Contact Netease or Baidu to suggest your
university’s open material for their app
Image from
Netease
recorded
lecture by M
Sandel

21. Thank you!
• Bird, T. (2013). iTunes U Reach: Case Study of
University of Leicester’s Release of Open Educational
Resources for International Students through iTunes
U. Leicester, UK.
• McGill, L. (2012). OER Synthesis and Evaluation / OER
Synthesis and Evaluation Project. OER Synthesis and
Evaluation Project. Retrieved March 09, 2013, from
https://oersynth.pbworks.com/w/page/29595671/O
ER Synthesis and Evaluation Project