Global Open Courses (GOC)

In Fall 2021, Tsinghua launched a total of eight English taught courses under the “Global Open Courses” (GOC) initiative. The initiative aims to build a global environment, promote the multicultural exchange of Chinese and foreign students, spark discussion on common issues and challenges facing the world, foster the “togetherness” mindset, and promote “togetherness” education.

In the fall of 2021, Tsinghua University (one of the co-founding members and the Secretariat of the Global MOOC Alliance) launched a total of seven Global Open Courses, namely “Carbon Neutrality: Why and How the World is Addressing Climate Change”, “China’s Approach to Poverty Eradication”, “Winter Olympics and Winter Sports”, “National Parks and Protected Areas of China”, “Future Automobiles”, “The Creation and Growth of Technology Enterprises” and “Positive Psychology”, taught in English and accessible to the world both online and offline. Learners can attend some or all of the courses and participate in online real-time interaction based on their own interests. At the same time, selected lectures will also be broadcast live to learners around the world through the international version of XuetangX and Tsinghua University’s social media accounts.

Tsinghua University launched the Global Hybrid Classroom in the spring semester of 2021, enabling Tsinghua students and overseas university students to attend “the same class” to build a global localized classroom and seek mutual recognition of credits. As of the fall semester, more than 400 students from Saint Petersburg University in Russia, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Politecnico di Milano in Italy, University of Chile and other universities have joined Tsinghua classrooms, and over 60 Tsinghua students have attended courses provided by Nanyang Technological University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Waseda University, University of Chile, Saint Petersburg University, and other universities.

The launch of the Global Open Courses aims to build a global environment, promote the multicultural exchange of Chinese and foreign students, spark discussion on common issues and challenges facing the world, foster the “togetherness” mindset, and promote “togetherness” education. In the future, Tsinghua University will continue to make more quality educational resources accessible to all through innovative and hybrid teaching methods. As President QIU Yong once said, Tsinghua strives to “develop quality open courses available to the world, tell the stories of Tsinghua and China”, and build itself as a more open, integrative and resilient university.

“See you in Global Open Courses” video and words from faculty.

Press covereage:

Development Initiative open courses for the 2022 autumn semester. The courses presented the latest developments in some fields regarding heat-debated global issues, including economy, culture, science and technology. The courses also contributed to the broader sharing of high-quality educational resources worldwide.

Course Syllabus

Introduction: Youth leadership
digital economy
Climate change and green development
Science and technology ethics
Education
COVID medication and vaccine
Future automobiles
Development financing
Global cooperation in science and technology

Unlike the Fall 2021 edition where every lecture of the eight courses launched will be made available, the Spring 2022 edition will only be making 1-2 lectures from each course openly available to the public (this is mainly because of the misaligned academic calendars across universities globally). For replays of lectures, you can either relocate the individual live stream link or browse through all the Spring 2022 lectures here: