British universities complying with Chinese internet restrictions

Universities in United Kingdom are testing a new link to teach students in China to give them a chance to complete their distance education despite the country's internet restictions.

However, students only have access to content underan "allowed" list while using this link.

Four Russell Group universities including King's College London, Queen Mary University of London, York and Southampton are a part of this pilot projectrun by JISC, formerly the Joint Information Systems Committee, which provides digital services for UK universities.

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The project would allow students in China to have better access to UK courses "while complying with local regulations", according to a spokeswoman who denied this move as an acceptance to ''censorshiop''.

It comes as British universitieswereurged to adopt a risk management strategy for any dealings with China amid concerns that academics are self-censoring because of fears about the consequences of offending the Chinese authorities.

Some websites are blocked or filtered under China's internet censorship and there have been concerns that students in China were unable tostudy online, such as clicking on an embedded link in a scholarly article.

The technical solution creates a virtual connection between the student in China and the online network of the UK university, where the course is being taught. It has been provided free by the Chinese internet firm Alibaba Cloud.

Chinese students have become an important source of revenue for UK universities, representing almost a quarter of all overseas students.