College courses online proving popular; China takes leading role

China aims to lead the global development of massive open online educational courses - known as MOOC - and set standards and create solutions for the sector, a Ministry of Education official said on Saturday.

"The ministry plans to roll out a development plan for online education at Chinese colleges, along with regulations and standards," said Song Yi of the ministry's Department of Higher Education. "We insist that Chinese online courses should go global and demonstrate to the world the country's achievements in the sector."

Song made the remarks at a seminar held by the ministry and Xuetangx - a MOOC platform run by Tsinghua University - to discuss the addition of quality online courses to college curricula.