A delegation of California State University-Long Beach(CSULB), led by Prof. Jane Conoley, President of California State University-Long Beach, came to visit Shanghai Open University(SOU) in the afternoon of September 1. Members of the delegation also include Dr. Jeet Joshee, Associate Vice President for International Education and Dean of the College of Continuing and Professional Education at CSULB, and Heidi Zhang, Director of International Training Programs at CSULB.
The delegation visited Shanghai Education Resources Center, Information Plantform Monitor and Exhibition Center, and the Digital Laboratory for Open Education at SOU at first, then they watched the presentation for the resources of Shanghai Learning Network, and had a better understanding of the digital education resources, the construction of life-long education resources, and the application of information technology on education at SOU.
After that, Jiang Hong, President of SOU, and Gu Xiaomin, Vice President of SOU met with the delegation. Liu Wenfu, Dean of the Institute of International Exchange, Xiao Jun, Associate Director of the Center for Information and Network Management, and SOU staff of the President Office also attended the meeting.
Jiang Hong introduced the development history, the characteristics, and the current stage of development of SOU. Also, he proposed suggestions for possible collaboration areas between SOU and CSULB. President Jane Conoley highly affirmed SOU’s achievements on applying modern information technology, transforming the society through the integration of technology and education, and its efforts to enabling more people to receive education.
Gu Xiaomin introduced the detailed plan for developing international cooperation at SOU in offering new specialties, building the curriculum, and providing training programs for teachers. Later, the two sides suggested further cooperation in other areas such as transfer of academic credit, certificate education as well as degree education. In the end, both sides reached a preliminary intent on cooperation.
