Tsinghua opens online classes to universities in Wuhan

Students of some universities in Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus epidemic, received access to the same online classes as their peers at Tsinghua University to get a helping hand from Beijing.

Students from three universities in Wuhan - Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan University and Huazhong University of Agriculture - as well as Xinjiang University in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Taiyuan University of Technology in Shanxi province have been connected with the Tsinghua curriculum and some 2,800 classes per student were registered on Wednesday.

Known as a "cloned class", the classes exist on the Rain Classroom platform developed by Tsinghua University to students both of and beyond the university. The platform combines PowerPoint and WeChat for sharing teaching materials and communication. Students can receive video, audio and school work files on WeChat and ask questions live during the class.

Yang Fang, associate professor of Tsinghua's Language Center, considers her Tsinghua class and "cloned" class as equals and added each of the students in the "cloned" class on WeChat.

Some 600 finance students from both Tsinghua and the Wuhan universities sat on Tuesday night for a class given by Ju Jiandong, professor of the PBC School of Finance at Tsinghua University, one of the nation's top finance education institutes.