OUC carries out distance educational activities using a integration of three networks, including a satellite TV network, a computer network, and the network of open universities' full-time and part-time faculty in China, i.e., the air network, the ground network, and the human network. This integration has become a prominent feature and strength of the open education in the OUC.

OUC initiated its open education for the public in 1999. In 2007, this form of education passed the summative evaluation by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China and was considered an independent educational form in the modern national educational system and lifelong educational system. By the autumn of 2008, 5,501,100 students had registered in the open universities in China with 2,766,500 active students, which accounted for over 2/3 of the total number of students receiving China's modern distance education. Up to 2,679,700 students have graduated, and its educational partners include 21 key conventional universities and 17 industry ministries in China.

OUC offers 75 majors in 9 disciplines and 24 specialties including science, engineering, agricultural science, medicine, literature, law, economics, management, and education. By the fall of 2008, there were 3,090,000 active students in the open universities in China, among whom 2,950,000 were students of junior colleges and undergraduate students, accounting for one tenth of the total enrollment in higher education around the country. At present, it is the largest open and distance education system in the world.

The primary role of OUC is to provide opportunities of higher education for professionals in different industries and enterprises and other members of the society, to conduct non-degree education through on-the-job training and training for rural practical skills, providing educational services for people from all walks of life to update their own knowledge and to learn new skills, to plan overall and comprehensive usage of open universities' educational resources from all over the country and to establish a distance education system of public services to provide support for distance education to colleges, universities, and other educational institutions.

OUC consists of six academic faculties: Faculty of Arts & Law, Faculty of Economics & Management, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Teacher Education, Faculty of Foreign Languages, and Faculty of Agroforestry & Medicine. OCU also has many schools addressing to specified groups of learners for degree programmes, such as Bayi School, Zongcan School, School for the Air Force, School of Tibet and School for the Disabled. Meanwhile, OUC has a School of Continuing Education dedicated to non-degree education programmes, China TV College of Teacher Education, China Liaoyuan Radio & TV School, and Secondary Technical School of OUC.

OUC, together with China's 44 provincial open universities, almost 1,000 municipal open universities and experimental schools of provincial open universities, near 2,000 county-level open universities and over 60,000 tutorial centres, forms a modern open and distance education system with the feature of overall planning, decentralized administration, and multi-level operation.

The Open University of China (abbreviated as OUC) is a university under direct administration of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. It is an open university that conducts national modern distance education through various media, such as printed materials, audio-visual materials, multimedia coursewares and online courses based on computer networks and satellite TV network. The preparation of its establishment commenced in February 1978, and it was officially founded in February 1979.

OUC is a member of the Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU, joined in 1993) and a member of the International Council of Distance Education (ICDE, joined in 1997). It has established communicative and cooperative relationships with many distance education institutions in other countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Sweden, England, Germany, Korea, Japan, Thailand, etc., and some regions like Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.