An Exploratory Research On The Reform Of Teaching Management In XX Open University

The Open University is a new type of university which appeared in the world in the late 1970s last century. It is technology-based and adopts open learning in terms of time, space, course delivery, learning resources and pedagogy, breaks free from the existing modes of traditional universities, provides learning opportunities and services to the adult people who are capable of and willing to pursue higher education to enhance national quality and thus results in equity in education. The Open University takes open, flexible, inclusive, lifelong and high quality education as its essential vision and is open to all social members. It is an innovative higher educational institution supported with modern information and communication technology and runs with several modes combined with blended learning, lifelong learning and adult education to fulfil the vision of constructing a learning society.With the rapid development of the Open Universities, the new type of higher educational institutions are much expected by the public, meanwhile people might have interest in what new characteristics this new type universities possess. Is it a simple duplicate copy of former Radio and Television University or a major strategic transformation, a paradigm shift? Are the past management system and teaching and learning mode still applicable to the current Open University? How to further develop Open University and work out new teaching and learning management modes that are suitable for universities after transformation in the new internet era?XX Open University is a new-type higher educational institution financed by XX provincial government and provincial educational authority with the implementation of open and distance education, whose predecessor is XX Radio and TV University, has made use of advantages of systematic, networked radio and television universities for 33 years. The radio and television university has accumulated rich educational resources and strong ability of serving economic and social development, and has formed the open and distance learning system covering the urban and rural areas in the province, and has been praised highly by the society. However, as a staff of the university, the author has noted that the hidden crisis exist behind the glory and the severe challenges face the development. Among all kinds of problems, the most prominent one is the teaching and learning management. In the current exploratory research, the author uses questionnaires and interviews methods to investigate the present situation of teaching and learning management in XX Open University and then makes statistical analysis on the problems existing in teaching and learning management system, management process and quality assurance system and after that, the author points out that main representation of teaching management problems includes unreasonable infrastructure of faculties, outdated management conceptions, lack of characteristics in professional setting, weak learning support service and so on. The author concludes that the root of the above problems lies in misunderstanding in university management conception, the government’s poor acknowledge in the Open University, insufficient sense of opening-up from the university authority and lack of learner support; the incompatibility between management mechanism and development in new internet era; blindly copying management practices of traditional universities and ignoring the special needs of open and distance learners on service quality; lacking efficient total quality management system, poor monitoring on teaching quality. The quality assurance measures remains a mere formality.Under the guidance of system theory, the author outsets on the concept of "opening-up" and proposes an innovative plan for transforming the teaching management in XX Open University, seeking for the appropriate educational mode and the optimization of management of the Open University in the new internet era.The author places teaching as the core task of the university; the teaching management reflects the overall management of the university. The characteristics of teaching management highlight the orientation and development of the university. Whether the practical problems of teaching management can be timely and effectively solved will directly affect the quality of teaching and thereafter affect the reform process of talent training mode.In the situation of increasingly diverse forms of online education in the province and the increasingly intense competition in adult education, the priority of XX Open University nowadays are to identify the orientation of reform and development, map out its own teaching management characteristics and seek differentiated development goal so as to carry out the life-long education, cultivate and provide high-quality graduates for its own survival and development. In accordance with specific case of XX Open University, the author proposes a complete set of reform measures and makes detailed demonstration including the Student-oriented, Service-oriented and Quality-oriented teaching management model; innovation of teaching management system, improvement of teaching management system, establishment of high level management team, improvement of teaching management mechanism, optimization of hierachical infrastructure of faculties, activation of the passion from the teaching staff, cooperation and sharing with high-quality faculties in elite traditional universities and improvement of teaching quality assurance system.