Chinese universities offer free online courses

Edited and translated by Yao Chun, People's Daily Online

Beijing, Nov.9 (People's Daily Online) -- According to the Ministry of Education, the first 20 China university open courses were put online on Nov. 9. The will have free access to them through several websites, such as www.icourses.edu．cn, www.cntv.cn and www.163.com.

Liu Jie, a spokesperson of the Higher Education Department of the Education Ministry of China, said Chinese university open courses consist ofnetwork video courses of cultural and scientific education as well as academic lectures. These courses are aimed at university students and are free to the public as well.

Most of these courses are about traditional Chinese culture, such as a Reading Guide Of Six Masterpieces provided by Nankai University and Wang Yangming's Doctrine of the Mind by Zhejiang University.

Besides these, there are also some courses focusing on spreading the achievements of human civilization and interpreting science and technology issues, such as the Rise And Fall Of Ancient Greek civilization by Wuhan University and an Introduction To Aerospace by Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

More courses with richer content and higher quality will be unveiled to the public following the release of first batch of Chinese university open courses.