Beijing Normal University Research Center of Distance Education (RCDE)is among the very first institutions that conduct research on distance education, developed from the TV & Communications Research Group which was part of the Electronics Department. The Research Group started to work on distance education in the late 1980s, and later in 1995 it developed into the Research Center for Education and Information Engineering, one of the oldest research centers of its kind in China. In 2000, the center was renamed to its present name.
In China, RCDE is the only accredited center that offers a three-year master’s/doctoral degree programme in Distance Education. The master’s degree programme was accredited by Academic Accreditation Committee in December 2005, and the doctoral degree programme was accredited in June 2012.
For over 30 years, RCDE has been continuously pursuing research on theories of distance education and methods to solve educational problems in practice. As well as developing applications of digital learning technology to support distance educational programmes, it offers students training courses, academic support programmes, and policy consultancy in the field of distance education. Since the late 1980s, the center, with its member lab - the Interactive Media Lab and the Digital Learning Lab, has actively engaged in collaborative work with international intuitions and organizations.