Dr. Sharon Ding and Mrs. Yang Guangyu from the UK Open University visited SOU on 11 December 2014 and gave a presentation in a seminar with the topic of Online Course Design and Assessment on 12 December at SOU.

Professor Gu Xiaomin, Vice-President of SOU, and administrative staff from the Foreign Affairs Office, International Exchange Institute and Teachers Training Center had a meeting with Dr. Sharon Ding and Mrs. Yang Guangyu. During the meeting, firstly, both sides summarized the Capacity Building and Training program held by the Open University in July 2014. Then they talked about the possibility of further cooperation regarding teaching resources and the preparation of the 2015 continuing training program. During the meeting, they all agreed that the cooperation between SOU and the OU in UK has brought various benefits to both sides, and more cooperation in all aspects will be furthered in 2015.

On 12 December 2014, Dr. Sharon Ding was invited by the Distance Education Engineering Technology Research Center of SOU to give a presentation. More than 40 faculty members from different departments of SOU attended the seminar.

During the seminar, Dr. Sharon Ding introduced the various elements of the learning process and learning support tools of online courses. She also shared online course examples of the Open University, and interacted with the attendees.