XuetangX, China's first massive open online courses (MOOCs) platform created by Tsinghua University, was announced as a member of the alliance for global MOOC cooperation established on Dec 11.

The Global MOOC Conference was held in Beijing-based Tsinghua University on Dec 11. [Photo/cctv.com]

Tsinghua University and the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) held a global MOOC conference in Beijing on the same day.

An alliance for global MOOC cooperation was launched during the event.

Apart from XuetangX, 17 universities and another two online education institutions from 14 countries on six continents have become founding members of the alliance.

The organization will gather universities and institutions to build a diversified community dedicated to promoting high-quality MOOCs and online education, while supporting international exchanges in educational and technological innovation.

A list of the founding members of the global MOOC cooperation alliance [Photo/thholding.com.cn]

XuetangX, the world's second-largest MOOCs platform, was initiated in 2013.

In the past seven years, it has provided global learners with high-quality resources and promoted educational equity. Meanwhile, it has been committed to exploring AI and big data-based education technology to offer transformation solutions to Chinese universities.

Run by Tsinghua Holdings’ subsidiary MOOC-EN Education Group, the platform has more than 3,000 high-quality online courses from top universities and serves 60 million users worldwide.

During the COVID-19 epidemic, XuetangX helped a million teachers in 825 Chinese colleges and universities to implement online teaching, benefiting more than 18 million students, including 350,000 international students.

From April 20, when the international version was released, to Nov 30, over 370 courses were rolled out, a number of which feature prevention of the novel coronavirus. They have achieved 80,000 views.

The XuetangX shared courses pertaining to COVID-19 prevention on its international version platform. [Photo/thholding.com.cn]

XuetangX contributes to technology and knowledge sharing by in-depth cooperation with more than 30 universities and institutions.

In 2018, it became the first partner of the ICEE, delivering high-quality engineering education resources to African, South American and Southeast Asian countries and regions along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

Relying on the international version platform, Tsinghua University held a summer school from July 20 to 28, attracting 1,000 students from 79 countries and regions.

The platform also won a technological innovation award at this year's THE Awards Asia for its product "Rain Classroom".