The Asia-Pacific Regional Seminar on MOOCs for Higher Education will be held in Shenzhen on Monday and Tuesday, one of the organizers, the International Center for Higher Education Innovation (ICHEI) under the auspices of UNESCO, said at a news briefing yesterday.
MOOCs is an abbreviation for massive open online courses, which aim at unlimited participation and open access via the Web.
At a news conference yesterday, Li Ming, director of ICHEI, said MOOCs and mixed learning are gaining popularity in this era of wide application of information communications technology (ICT).
“For the underdeveloped countries and regions in the Asia-Pacific region, quality educational resources can be shared, coverage of higher education can be expanded and fairness of higher learning can be greatly improved,” said Li.
The opening of the seminar will coincide with the 2nd anniversary of ICHEI. In two years, ICHEI has developed educational programs in the Asia-Pacific region and African countries.
Supported by Higher Learning Education Research Center of Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), ICHEI conducted ICT seminars to improve ICT management in some Asian and African countries.
Around the theme of “Seizing Digital Opportunities to Achieve SDG4,” the seminar will highlight technology that can enhance the quality of teaching and learning in higher education, identify strategies to strengthen institutional governance and partnerships for technology-enriched learning in order to reach the most vulnerable in the Asia-Pacific region, convene experts from national platforms to exchange experiences and assess readiness for a regional network on MOOCs in the Asia-Pacific region and develop a research framework for a new flagship publication to analyze the gaps and opportunities for MOOC policies and practices in achieving SDG4.
On the first day, the seminar will focus on national strategies and the platform resources of the countries that develop MOOCs.
Education officials from Australia, China, Mongolia, South Korea and Afghanistan will share their challenges in exploring and maintaining MOOC strategies and insights from collecting and promoting innovative and effective policies.
More than 100 education experts from 20 countries in the Asia-Pacific region will share their practices and experiences in developing MOOCs and the use of ICT in promoting equality and improving quality in higher education.
The regional seminar is co-organized by the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau for Education (UNESCO Bangkok), the National Commission of China for UNESCO and SUSTech.