Formal Start of the Journey of the Creation of ELITE O2O Innovation University

On 22nd November 2020, Professor Richard Li-Hua, Founder and President of Camot Academy Cambridge delivered his keynote Speech with a pre-recorded video live broadcasted by CCTV at China Association of Higher Education Annual International Conference, hosted at Zhengzhou University, P.R.China.

The topic of his keynote speech is Perspective of ELITE O2O Innovative University: A Transformation and Revolution in the Global Higher Education in Post COVID-19 Era.

He pointed out at the beginning of the speech, “COVID-19 has had a profound impact on the world economy, the global governance system, the international political landscape and the global higher education. However, from a historical, dialectical and systematic perspective, the interdependence of human survival still exists, the basic development elements of maintaining the global economy and the global higher education will not be swayed by the virus.”

With examination of the history and the evolution of MOOC, he highlighted that hardly anybody could predicate that around one billion students around the world have to study online courses in 2020 after 12 years of the birth of MOOC. With outbreak of COVID-19, technology enhanced learning and digitalization have been rapidly adopted globally by education institutions which play a key role for the continuity of the education and learning.  Not only so, there are more emerging online innovative universities have begun to penetrate into the global higher education systems and markets which challenge the traditional university model of 800 years old. No doubt, this unprecedented impact caused by the pandemic would ultimately lead to a great revolution in the global higher education. 

According to the recent OECD report, COVID-19 crisis has forced school closures in 188 countries, heavily disrupting the learning process of more than 1.7 billion children, youth, and their families. Digital revolution and online-learning solutions were implemented to ensure education continuity during this difficult time. Much of the current debate focuses on how much students have learnt during school closures and this potential learning loss may only be temporary, however, other important elements that happen during the school closures, such as the curbing of educational aspirations, the disengagement from the university system and absence from the familiar academic ambience on campus will have a long-term impact on students’ journey and learning outcomes. To address these important challenges and issues, Professor Li-Hua expressed that the initiative of ‘an ELITE[1] O2O innovative education platform’ ought to be considered to play an important role in creating more affordable, accessible, innovative and flexible higher education options for learners in a global community. 

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He further dwelled upon the initiative of ELITE O2O Innovation University. The intention of Downes and Siemens’ exploitation of online course delivery was on the connectivity of knowledge. Christensen’s predication on the closure of more traditional university rests upon his theory of “disruptive innovation” and the financial consequences that the traditional universities will suffer. However, he referred the mode of online and offline learning to his publication Technology and Knowledge Transfer in China in 2005 and Competitiveness of Chinese Firms: West MEETS East in 2014. In fact, knowledge can be classified as explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. While explicit knowledge could be easily transferred while tacit knowledge transfer has to be monitored during the transfer process. Successful explicit knowledge transferred can be achieved online while tacit knowledge has to be transferred through the face to face mode, which means that the nature of knowledge determines the mode of transfer and delivery can be online and offline.[2]

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He stressed, “almost all the universities and colleges are currently delivering courses online based upon the MOOC experiences since the outbreak of Covid-19. In fact, there is similarities of online delivery around the globe as universities and colleges have been forced to do so. Our intention of establishment of ELITE O2O (online and offline) Innovative Education Platform is an exploration of an innovative education pedagogy of integrating the delivery of programmes, knowledge, contents and education ethos with a global vision embedded in the teaching and learning strategy built into the technological system of O2O innovation university. This technological innovation system demonstrates how various features and objectives of innovative and entrepreneurial university can be created, translated, articulated and achieved within a learning organization context.”

By taking this great opportunity, Professor Li-Hua announced that Camot Academy Cambridge has started the journey in the creation of a globally-connected ELITE O2O Innovation University of the future.

Note from the Editor: 

Please refer to the synopsis of Professor Richard Li-Hua’s keynote speech and watch the pre-recorded video of his keynote speech at China Association of Higher Education Annual International Conference, 20-22 November 2020, Zhengzhou, China, for further details.