It is widely acknowledged that online education in UK higher education institutions is among the best in the world, taking advantage of state-of-the-art educational facilities and research achievements. In particular, over the past year, as the world moves into the post-pandemic era, the badly hit sector of UK international education is in urgent need of revival. At this juncture, through the development of digital educational resources, the UK higher education system has effectively resuscitated international education, spurred growth in the education economy, and enhanced the overall competitiveness of higher education in the UK.
In this respect, the relevant experience of UK higher education is worth drawing upon.
Multi-layered Development of Online Educational Resources
To interconnect schools and educational institutions nationwide, the UK established the National Learning Network, which has grown to become the largest online educational resource network in the country and evolved to be the biggest in Europe. The Education and Technology Agency of the UK complements this by integrating multi-faceted resources on top of the National Learning Network, thereby offering convenient resource retrieval services to universities.
Moreover, since the beginning of this century, the UK higher education sector has set up a specific network for teachers to facilitate timely access to resources and services, with stringent scrutiny for all available resources to guarantee their reliability. Teachers are permitted to maintain the content of resources on the website and to develop and freely download the necessary resources.
In the post-pandemic age, a virtual teaching service center created by the National Learning Network provides teachers with training resources related to online education capabilities, and combines search, download, and communication functions into one, closely linking the faculties of various universities.
UK universities also set up a National Curriculum website encompassing all knowledge points in the national curriculum. The website allows teachers to establish links between the relevant resources and lesson plans, ensuring that every knowledge point in the curriculum is linked to corresponding resources. Additionally, universities are actively exploring operational models of online education and through various investments, ensuring complete internet connectivity to transmit online educational resources to classrooms. This encourages and supports the adult community to attend university-based learning.
Furthermore, local education departments in the UK have established educational resource portals for universities within their jurisdiction. Take Warwickshire as an example, where the local government and education bureau have set up an educational information network for universities, with the help of professional educational technology companies to build a comprehensive management platform that includes administrative, resource, and classroom management functions, all serving the digital education needs of teachers and students.
Active Participation of Multiple Institutions
In addition to universities themselves and governing bodies of all levels, UK university teachers collaborate with corporations to develop digital educational resources.
For instance, teachers at King's College London, Queen Mary University of London, the University of York, and the University of Southampton, under the Russell Group of universities, have established online educational resource websites in partnership with media enterprises like the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), providing students with micro-lessons and digital videos on core subjects.
This includes contributions from non-profit organizations representative of the tech community in the UK.
The tech societies in the UK fall under public non-profit organizations supported by diverse social capital. Presently, these societies have developed multiple projects, have been involved in university research topics, and have established a relatively stable scientific education system.
For example, the UK's Science Learning Centre has developed key focus courses for universities, chiefly responsible for cultivating experts in science education, providing digital resource services to science teachers, experts, technicians, and science communicators at universities through various science education projects and professional training programs. Meanwhile, the UK's Association for Science Education offers theoretical learning resources to university teachers and science communicators, allowing them to select suitable training programs based on their individual needs and interests.
There are also numerous UK-based companies specializing in the development of educational software. These companies have released a wealth of online educational resources, which UK universities can access by applying for special government grants to purchase.
For example, as a company that specializes in creating online educational resources, Educational Technology Ltd. in the UK has developed educational content covering various disciplines, with a systemic platform consisting of five major components. This enables the integration and application of functionalities such as the Management Information System (MIS), email, campus interaction, student positioning, online learning, among others. Additionally, professional institutions like the UK Skills Talent Center offer online educational capability training courses for teachers.
It is worth mentioning that with the continuous development of big data and network technology, the UK government is placing greater emphasis on leveraging the online educational function of the open universities and has invested substantially in this area. By employing internet technologies, wireless transmission, and databases, the government is ensuring that online teaching is consistent with traditional offline teaching in the delivery of knowledge. Special photographers are commissioned to record offline teaching processes, editing and uploading the videos to educational websites to meet students' learning requirements.
Take the UK Open University as an example – it has launched a dedicated online education network platform and has built a web-based learning space, offering open electronic courseware to students. The network resources it provides can be accessed via CDs, databases, and satellite broadcasts, among other means, and many of these educational resources are available for free.
Emphasis on Student Emotional Experience
Currently, the experience of UK universities in constructing digital educational resources can offer many insights for the digital education of higher institutions in China.
First and foremost, online educational resources in Chinese higher education institutions primarily serve exam-oriented education and are governed by traditional educational concepts. For instance, many universities' primary purpose in establishing cloud-based platforms is to provide students with online courses related to exams and textbook learning. This is reflected in the focus on textbook-based after-class explanations and the division of resources mainly by grade, chapter, and version. It emphasizes effective "teaching" rather than effective "learning," catering more for teachers' lesson preparation than for students' independent research, without regional or leveled resource categorization.
In contrast, the main feature of UK online educational resources is the learner-centric approach, emphasizing personalized learning for students and the importance of students' emotional experiences during different learning processes.
Therefore, the construction of online educational resources in Chinese higher education should take into account factors such as region, ethnicity, and educational levels, and pay attention to students' learning interests, experiences, and feelings.
Secondly, we should adhere to the student-centered educational resource development concept of digital education. The construction of online educational resources at UK universities advocates "education through fun, and student-centeredness," which also permeates its online resources, emphasizing that the design of resources follows the natural laws of students' physical and mental development. This is also worth learning from by universities in China.
For example, in resources aimed at undergraduates at UK universities, the proportion of game-based learning design can account for up to 50%. Targeting the cognitive abilities and psycho-physical features of graduate students, UK universities stress the application of academic resources in creating digital teaching content, to stimulate the research interest of graduate students, thereby improving their research outcomes, while focusing on collaboration among peers, collaboration between home and school, and collaborative guidance.
Thirdly, we should leverage the role of public, free online educational resource websites. In China, with the rapid development of free educational platforms, philanthropic online educational media is also growing quickly. We face significant challenges including a lack of effective teacher-student interaction, which reduces students' interest in learning, their learning enthusiasm and autonomy, and yields a poor atmosphere of interaction in online classrooms.
This issue is also common among UK universities. However, the practice of integrating elements such as games into teaching resources in the UK's public online education is worth learning from. Free websites should promote students learning happily and grasping knowledge through play. These successful experiences and teaching philosophies are valuable for adoption and learning in the construction of philanthropic educational resources.
Lastly, the enhancement of the service support for educational resource websites is crucial.
Many online courses in the UK offer learners a "study pack," which includes teaching materials, documents, audio recordings, video materials, assignment details, and instructions for using the materials. Taking the UK Open University as an example, aside from providing students with printed materials, visual resources, and exam reference lists, it also sets up dedicated managers. They are organized in a meticulous, role-specific manner, creating a pyramid-like management hierarchy.
In this respect, the construction of digital educational resources in Chinese universities should not only focus on website development, design, and maintenance but also consider the technical support for the services of educational resource websites. This could involve updating templates for functionalities such as course registration, assignment submission, correction of work, and course downloads, thus addressing student difficulties in various ways.
In the post-pandemic era, the construction of digital educational resources in Chinese universities must strictly comply with the requirements and quality standards of online courses. When designing web-based courses, comprehensive consideration should be given to the interaction needs between students and teachers, and solutions should be found for issues students encounter when selecting courses online, submitting assignments, and receiving course-related materials. If necessary, simulations of online educational resources should be conducted to obtain timely feedback.
In conclusion, the construction of digital educational resource websites is not simply about transferring course content online. In the future, the website service and technical support for digital online educational resources in Chinese universities will be a crucial aspect of development.
(The authors are respectively a professor at Communication University of China and a master's student at Thammasat University in Thailand; this article is a phase study achievement of the "European University ICT Digital Education Development Study" project, Humanities and Social Science Fund of the Ministry of Education in 2023 (Approval number: 23YJA880084), and the 2023 Beijing Educational Sciences "14th Five-Year Plan" project "Post-pandemic Era European University Digital Education Study" (approval number: AGDB23172)
