participating universities and centers

Sharing of the developed content is important in maximizing the development effect. Although most content developed at a university is mainly for teaching in the university where the regional e-learning center is located, some content is shared with other participating universities in the same region.

Many participating universities agreed to open the content of their ‘online-onlyclasses to all students at other participating universities. In such cases, the credits that students received from the e-learning course can be transferred to the universities that students are attending.

This credit transfer started at the regional level, that is, among participating universities in the same region, but soon expanded to the national level, that is, other regional university e learning centers. Now, over 100 universities participate in the scheme. Table 1 shows trends in credit transfer among the universities.

Table 1. Trends in credit transfer among the universities.

year Participating Participating Participating	Participating universities in credit transfer program	In-house only class Sharing Sharing Sharing		Sharing content class
				Intra-region		Inter-region
		class	participants	class	participants	class	Participants
2008	74	1,018	155,997	311	33,131	82	5,739
2009	84	973	143,129	322	54,677	74	6,334
2010	100	1,132	144,770	337	52,614	67	6,800

3.2.3. Sharing e-learning content with the public

Sharing e-learning content is not limited to universities in and between regions. Some of the content developed by regional centers is open to the public or even to foreign nationals. This is actively encouraged by the Korean government and is considered as a contribution to the Open Educational Resources (OCR) movement. Content is loaded on the Korea Open Course Ware (KOCW) website (www.kocw.net), which can be accessed freely. As of 2011, 8,482 course contents have been opened to the public on the KOCW website.

Military service is mandatory for Korean male students over 21 years old. For a period of 22 months, they have to leave their university, take a leave of absence, and discontinue their studies. However, e-learning provides an opportunity for students in military service to continue their studies. These students can gain credits by participating in online classes authorized by the government and those credits can be approved by the universities. As of August 2011, 101 universities and 5,637 students participated in this plan. Of these, 129 classes and 51% of the participants were covered by a regional university e-learning center.

The regional university e-learning centers formed the Korean Association of University E‑Learning Center to facilitate cooperation among the regional centers and stimulate e‑learning at the national level. It held regular seminars and conferences to discuss strategies for developing e-learning for university teaching among members. This association made an agreement about mutual credit transfer among member centers in October 2009.