Disrupted classes, undisrupted learning during COVID-19 outbreak in China: application of open educational practices and resources

• Published in: Smart learning environments Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 19 - 15
• Main Authors: Huang, Ronghuai, Tlili, Ahmed, Chang, Ting-Wen, Zhang, Xiangling, Nascimbeni, Fabio, Burgos, Daniel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore Springer Singapore 06.07.2020; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: CAI; Colleges & universities; Computer assisted instruction; Computers and Education; Coronavirus (COVID-19); Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Distance education; Education; Educational Practices; Educational Resources; On-line systems; Online education; Open education; Open educational practices (OEP); Open Educational Resources; Open educational resources (OER); Outbreaks; Reforming; Teaching; Towards enhancing learning using open educational resources; Viral diseases; China; Coronavirus (COVID-19); Distance education; Online education; Open educational practices (OEP); Open education; Open educational resources (OER)
• ISSN: 2196-7091; 2196-7091
• DOI: 10.1186/s40561-020-00125-8

With the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in China, the Chinese government decided to ban any type of face-to-face teaching, disrupting classes and resulting in over 270 million students being unable to return to their universities/schools. Therefore, the Ministry of Education (MoE) launched an initiative titled ‘Ensuring learning undisrupted when classes are disrupted’ by reforming the entire educational system and including an online education component. However, this quick reform in this unexpected critical situation of widespread COVID-19 cases harbours several challenges, such as the lack of time and teacher/student isolation. This paper discusses the possibility of using open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) as an effective educational solution to overcome these challenges. Particularly, this study presents a generic OEP framework built on existing open-practice definitions. It then presents, based on this framework and based on the challenges reported by several Chinese education specialists during two national online seminars, a set of guidelines for the effective use of OER and OEP for both teaching and learning. Finally, this study presents some recommendations for the better adoption of OER and OEP in the future. The findings of this study can help researchers and educators apply OER and OEP for better learning experiences and outcomes during the COVID-19 outbreak.