Open Educational Resources Of British Universities Since World War ?

With the development of information technology,the idea of "Open and Share" is widely accepted by people.And open educational resources have become the effective force to promote educational fairness and lifelong education.Nowadays,open educational resources are not only a hot topic of academic research,but also attract concern of governments and international organizations.With the rapid increase of the open educational resources,coupled with the joint interaction of market operation and international competition,the quality of open educational resources has also been put on the agenda.Britain has a long history of continuing education and open education.Especially after World War II,driven by new teaching philosophy and educational technologies,Britain's open education resources have become more and more abundant in both open dimensions and forms.At the same time,British higher education is famous for its "elite education",and its efforts in quality assurance of higher education have attracted worldwide attention.This dissertation examines the open education resources provided by British universities after the war,especially discusses the work they have done to guarantee the quality of open education resources,which helps us better understand the different dimensions of open education resources and their corresponding management mechanism,and provides reference for the construction of open education resources in China.The development of the post-war British university open education resources is studied under its specific historical background in chronological order.Five different forms of open education,resources,the institutions of internal quality assurance procedures,and the internal and external quality assessment process of the institutions are examined from the perspective of quality culture.The main features and driving forces of the British university open education resources was summarized,which are proving to have inspirations for the development of open education resources in our country.This dissertation falls into 9 parts,including introduction and conclusion.Chapter one reviews the open educational resources of British universities before the war.British higher education has a long history,and the earliest open education resources of British universities may be traced back to the London university' s degree open and University Extension Movement in the 19 th century.The background,features and influence of the London university' s degree open and University Extension Movement are examined as a foundation for understanding the development of open educational resources of British universities after WW II.Chapter two discusses the open educational resources in overseas education.Overseas education expands the high-quality higher education resources of the country overseas and eliminates the barriers in geographic space,but the requirement are not lowered the threshold and they are offered for fee.Open educational resources in overseas education include courses,teachers and management modes,and the quality assurance is mainly undertaken by the institutions.Taking the university of Nottingham as an example,this chapter introduces the measures taken by the university to guarantee the quality of open education resources,the internal evaluation mechanism established by the university,the transnational education evaluation by the UK Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency and the external evaluation by professional certification bodies.Chapter three inspects the open educational resources of Open University.With the mission of "four openness",the Open University sets no threshold and provides high-quality education for all who wish to realize their dreams and potentials,so as to promote educational equity.The open education resources provided by the Open University include excellent course materials,enthusiastic staff and a learner-centered support system.In order to ensure the quality of its open education resources,the Open University has formed mature guarantee systems,and publishes detailed quality data report every year.At the same time,these open education resources,as part of the Open University,are subject to the institutional audit of the UK QAA and the National Student Survey.Chapter four analyzes the open educational resources of the University for Industry.University for Industry is a beneficial attempt by the British government to promote the quality of the national by using technology.Its main open education resources are the Information,Advice and Guidance services provided by University for Industry,as well as the services of the employees who take various roles in the training organized by industrial university.University for Industry has experienced the process from government investment to self-management.In order to improve its brand quality,University for Industry should not only follow national standards,but also develop a series of internal quality assurance measures.As an educational service industry,University for Industry are mainly evaluated by government departments such as Ofsted and some professional organizations.The fifth chapter elaborates the open educational resources in the OpenLearn project.the OpenLearn project aims to "open education to all in the world for free",and provides some excellent resources of the Open University to the public for free use.Open education resources in the OpenLearn project are mainly course resources,which are not only available for free,but also can be reused under the creative Commons license agreement.This is an important attempt of open educational resources,and the Open University also explores on this project.On the one hand,the quality of open resources was strictly ensured;on the other hand,investigation and research were actively carried out and the OpenLearn project was improved by the investigation results.Although there is no official assessment of resources in the OpenLearn project,some assessments by intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations are available.Chapter six analyzes the open educational resources in Massive Online Open Courses.MOOCs are the new development of the open education idea in the field of higher education.The open education resources in MOOCs include the online courses and platforms.The quality of MOOCs is controlled by the course providers,while the quality of the platforms is controlled by the creators.Guidelines for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of MOOCs issued by the Commonwealth of Learning provides guidance to the providers on how to ensure quality.As a new thing,there is no official organization to evaluate MOOCs,but some academic groups and non-governmental organizations evaluate MOOCs from multiple perspectives.Chapter seven examines the open educational resources of British universities after WW II.After the war,British universities were rich in open education resources.The strict self-discipline of the resource providers and the participation of multiple parties in external quality assessment protected the quality of open education resources,making open education resources become another bright spot of British higher education.On this basis,this dissertation analyzes the causes of open educational resources in British universities after the war,including four aspects: cultural tradition,international trend of thought,imbalance between supply and demand as well as technological development,and points out its inspiration to the development of open educational resources in China.The Conclusion part emphasizes that the purpose of open educational resources determines its open dimensions,that the development of technology provides unlimited possibilities for open educational resources,and that quality culture is the key element to understand quality connotation and promote quality management.However,the cultivation of quality culture cannot be accomplished in a day.When learning from the quality management mechanism of open educational resources in British universities,we should closely take into account the reality of higher education in China.