Many universities have invested in the development of open educational resources and MOOCs, but perhaps been disappointed in the outcomes. Content driven courses are often inadequate for successful learning, especially where new concepts have to be grasped. It also costs to prepare and give courses away for free, with no return. The WoLearn model addresses both of these: it adds live seminars and interaction to the content to address students’ questions and correct misunderstandings, while receiving payment from the Chinese institution for your academic’s time.

For academics who are excited by the opportunities that technology can bring for learning, but believe it is necessary to overcome the limitations of pure content based courses, the WoLearn model and its supporting platform can be used to develop innovative practices at an individual or institutional level with support from WoLearn to identify sustainable models.