Intercultural Understanding of E-Learning: Case Study of eChina~UK Program

Both China and UK have enjoyed fast development of e-learning and are beginning to look out to the world. Therefore, intercultural collaboration becomes indispensable and rewarding to both sides involved. Facing different cultures from those of one´s own, a nation may come upon a lot of issues that hinder the success of collaboration yet at the same time can lead to insights into and innovations of diverse perspectives of e-learning. eChina~UK e-learning program is such an intercultural collaborative project. This paper draws experiences from eChina UK program and explores important themes in intercultural understanding of e-learning including differences in pedagogy, intercultural communication and collaboration, and issues of quality assurance (QA) and intellectual property rights (IPR). Conclusions are drawn from these experiences that although there are differences in pedagogy between China and UK, intercultural collaboration is of significance to both sides, in which process challenges like QA and IPR are to be met.