A Technical Mode for Sharing and Utilizing Open Educational Resources in Chinese Universities

Open educational resources just supply potentials to help equalize the access to worldwide knowledge and education, but themselves alone do not cause effective learning or education. How to make effective use of the resources is still a big challenge. In this study, a technical mode is proposed to collect the open educational resources from different sources on the Internet into a campus-network-based resource management system. The system facilitates free and easy access to the resources for instructors and students in universities and integrates the resources into learning and teaching. The technical issues regarding the design the resource management system are examined, including the structure and functions of the system, metadata standard compatibility and scalability, metadata file format, and resource utilization assessment. Furthermore, the resource collecting, storage and utilization modes are also discussed so as to lay a technical basis for extensive and efficient sharing and utilization of the OER in Chinese universities.