BEIJING, Aug. 29 -- Lucifer Chu, 30, said he hopes more Chinese-speaking people will make use of the free educational resources posted on his OOPS Website (www.cocw.net) during a stop in the city over the weekend.

    The translator of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" in Taiwan, Chu invented the Opensource Opencourseware Prototype System, a project that translates English open courseware from some top universities into both simplified and traditional Chinese, so that all Chinese people can have access to it.

    Chu launched the system in February last year, and began the translation work himself.

    He has recruited 1,500 volunteers who speak or understand Chinese to help with the translation work.

    They includes CEOs, college presidents, professors, engineers, accountants, musicians, designers, lawyers, doctors and students from 16 countries and regions. About 300 come from the Chinese mainland, of whom 50 are from Shanghai.

    "At first no one believed that the project could be worked out, but with so many volunteers devoting their time, energy and expertise, we make the impossible possible," Chu said when he met for the first time with some mainland volunteers in the city over the weekend.

    "We are the world's only translating network that is maintained entirely by volunteers."

    Chu said he plans to translate at least 1,500 courses. More than 1,200 courses are from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the rest come from Johns Hopkins, Utah State and Cambridge University.

    So far 55 courses have been fully translated, 305 partially online and 920 are being translated or edited. The Website now receives 100,000 to 120,000 visits a month.

    Chu said he has invested 600,000 Taiwan dollars (US$18,755) into OOPS from the money he earned translating the "Lord of the Rings."

    "Money is not what I'm worried about," he said. "I need more volunteers to do the work, and more users to witness our efforts." Enditem

(Source: Shanghai Daily news)