This book presents a review of Chinese experience in e-learning. It outlines the background of e-learning in the country and charts out its development. E-learning has two forms here: the e-learning colleges in 68 regular universities and the open University system led by the Open University of China. The off-campus support systems for e-learning students include public service systems with Chinese characteristics, except for learning centers. This education primarily targets people outside school—adult employees—and provides education services to rural areas, industries, remote areas, and the army. In its current state, this forms the biggest e-learning system in the world.
The authors have consulted statistics and reports of the National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Education and have further collected data and information from e-learning colleges and their Web sites of the open university system.
E-Learning in China will benefit practitioners, researchers, and management staff involved in e-learning and also serve as a work of reference for learning, research, management, and operation of the e-learning industry.
Geng, Chen: - CHEN Geng is Director of School of Distance Learning and Continuing Education, Beijing Jiaotong University; Director of Expert Group Office of Modern Distance Education Resource Construction, Ministry of Education. He also serves as Deputy Director of National Committee of E-leaning Examination in Colleges and Universities, as well as Deputy Secretary General of National Coordination Group of E-leaning in Colleges and Universities.
Haijun, Zeng: - Zeng Haijun is currently working as Program Coordinator at UNESCO International Research and Training Centre for Rural Education (INRULED) and C&B Manager in Human Resources Department of Beijing Normal University (BNU). He started his research on ICT in education when he was working in Research Centre of Knowledge Engineering and Laboratory of e-Learning in BNU in 2001. He worked in the Division of Distance and Continuing Education of Department of Higher Education, China Ministry of Education from 2005 to 2010. He edited a book named What Happened in e-Learning in Chinese Universities (in Chinese), which was published in 2009. His doctoral thesis, Study on Public Support Service System of E-learning (in Chinese), as a monograph was published in 2012. His research book e-Learning in China (in English) was published by SAGE in 2014. He has set up a special column in the Journal of China Distance Education and invites many international experts to share their findings. He also works as the reviewer for International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning and Journal of Open Education Research.
Huaying, Bao: - BAO Huaying, PhD, is Dean of School of Continuing Education and Teacher Training, Beijing Normal University. She also serves in the Ministry of Education as Director of Training Center for Teachers in Colleges and Universities, and Director of Teacher Qualification Verification Guidance Center, as well as Secretary General of National Networked Consortium for Teacher Education and Director of Office of National Teacher Training Program.
