Contributed by Fun-Den Wang
The Open Education Conference 2006, sponsored and organized by CORE, MIT OCW, and the Hewlett Foundation, was held on 6-8 September 2006 in Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China. One hundred participants attended the conference and 24 speakers gave presentations on their OER initiatives, including 9 speakers from US, one from Japan, and 14 from CORE's Lead and Member Universities in China. Mr. Zhang Xinsheng, Vice-Minister, Ministry of Education, sent a congratulatory letter to the conference.
Sally M. Johnston introduced the Hewlett Foundation's update on Open Education Resources. Other American speakers focused on advanced education software and resources. Chinese speakers introduced the application of MITOCW, Chinese Quality Courses, quality assurance, and other aspects of OER.
An award ceremony and banquet were held in the evening of 6 September 2006. Ten OER experts were awarded the Open Educational Accomplishment Award. The winners are Prof. David Wiley of Utah State University, Prof. James D. Yager of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Prof. Sukon Kanchanaraksa of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Prof. Mary Y. Lee of Tufts University, Prof. Chen Gang of Tsinghua University, Prof. Qiu Jie of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Prof. Zhu Hong of Dalian University of Technology, Prof. Fang Jin of Beijing Normal University, Prof. Zhang Xinmao of Beijing Jiaotong University and Prof. Li Linshu of CRTVU.