On June 21, 2016, the World Bank Group (WBG) will launch the Open Learning Campus (OLC) in China. The OLC is the WBG’s single destination for staff and client learning. The OLC is designed to help build leadership and technical capacity by bringing global development knowledge to development partners, practitioners and policy makers.   The OLC will leverage the ease and wide availability of internet and mobile access, latest developments in adult pedagogy and learning behaviours to achieve scale and reach hundreds of thousands of people in developing and developed countries who can learn anywhere, any time and at any pace.  

The OLC represents the WBG’s commitment to harnessing the global revolution happening in the field of learning for better development outcomes by bringing global development knowledge of what works and how, to development practitioners.  It builds on the vast repository of tacit and codified knowledge existing in the institution and globally. In the last three years alone, the WBG has produced approximately 400 digital learning activities, reaching over 250,000 learners in 190 countries through the e-institute which piloted e-learning for clients with great success. The OLC will enable the WBG to scale up development learning providing greater access and enhanced user experience to both staff and clients.   

The OLC builds on several recent efforts to translate both WBG and global knowledge into learning modules that are pedagogically sound and easily accessible in diverse formats including e-courses, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), webinars and podcasts, Ted-type talks as well as game infused and bite-sized learning. The OLC will provide the versatility and modular approach and just-in-time learning for development practitioners through structured, and iterative learning. The OLC is based on the very successful digital learning achievements such as the Khan Academy, and Massive Open Online Courses hosted by, among others, EdX and Coursera.