Much of the discussion between Sheffield and BNU was about the purpose and level of learning appropriate for a Masters module.

We had different views – Sheffield thought that the purpose of the module was to enable the learners to link theory and practice through reflection on their practice, to develop perspectives as research practitioners. BNU wanted the focus to be more practical to support the teachers in effective decision-making about using e-learning technology and to develop associated skills in using it.

As the two teams developed different but complementary units, in some ways, these two perspectives were combined in the content of the units. As meetings progressed, we noticed that our ideas were being used in the Chinese units, and similarly, we were using Chinese ideas in the development of our units.

It also took some time to negotiate the course credit equivalence between the UK and Chinese systems.

In discussions about which university (BNU or Sheffield) was going to teach the courses, we also considered briefly the implications of seeking accreditation for the module and whether the module would pass institutional quality assurance procedures.

In Sheffield’s case, we had experience of successfully putting an e-learning Masters course through a UK Teaching Quality Assessment procedure. As there were no e-learning Benchmarks at the time, our e-learning course had to fit into a traditional TQA procedure. China does not at present have such procedures but plans to develop them. BNU could get institutional accreditation for the course.

The issue of joint accreditation (ie the module being accredited both by Sheffield and BNU) and sharing the running of the module was too complex to address, and we did not pursue this.

Sheffield’s priority was to work with BNU to enable them to build their expertise to run the course in China.