Open University of Hong Kong

The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) has the mission to make higher education available to adults, principally through a system of open access and distance education, in and around Hong Kong.

Its key values are as follows. In providing higher education, the University, as a self-financing, non-profit-making organization:

• believes that higher education should be available to all those aspiring to it, regardless of previous qualification, gender, or race;
• recognizes the importance of sustainable and affordable high-quality programmes and courses across disciplines and at a variety of levels to meet the needs of lifelong learners;
• commits itself to excellence in teaching, scholarship, research and public service;
• values the appropriate use of information and communication technologies to support learning.

The vision of the Open University of Hong Kong is to strive to be a leader among universities providing learning opportunities by open and distance education, and to excel as a provider of higher education in general.

Its web site is http://www.ouhk.edu.hk.

History

The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK), formerly the Open Learning Institute of Hong Kong (OLI), is the first university offering open and distance education in Hong Kong. The change of title, in May 1997, reflects the recognition of the University's academic standing, achievements and contributions over the past years.

Since its inception in 1989 the University has striven continuously to achieve its mission of providing high quality and flexible further education opportunities for adults. Currently the University offers more than 100 postgraduate, degree, associate degree and sub-degree programmes.

The OUHK uses a flexible credit system under which students earn credits for each course and accumulate credits towards a degree. The OUHK offers great freedom for its students in where and when they study, and provide them with carefully structured materials to guide them through the courses. There are also trained tutors who hold tutorial sessions, comment on and mark assignments, and answer students' queries by phone and correspondence.

In April 1996, the Institute moved to its permanent campus in Ho Man Tin. The campus comprises such facilities as a library, a computer laboratory, an audio-visual centre, a language laboratory, a lecture theatre, science project laboratories, tutorial rooms and a disabled students' centre. With the official launch of the Electronic Library in November 1998, students of the OUHK now have easy access, from anywhere they want, to data equivalent to over 500,000 volumes of publications. The new facilities and equipment, coupled with the flexibility of distance education system, provide an ideal learning environment for adult students in Hong Kong. In October 2000, the OUHK Island Learning Centre opened at Shun Tak Centre, Sheung Wan.

Follow-up

OUHK is an interesting place but probably not relevant to the mainstream of European universities.

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