WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), Renmin University of China (RUC) and University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding of a volunteer project in which UMC and RCU will cooperate to select and train 50 English-native-speaker volunteers for 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing in University of Missouri-Columbia on Thursday.

    UMC will recruit graduates and undergraduates very soon and train them in this semester with special knowledge and skills to ensure those students will be competent for the tasks assigned by BOCOG in 2008 Olympic Games time.

    Most of their tasks will be collecting flash quotes and writing press conference highlights.

    In other words, those students will be involved in BOCOG's Olympic News Services (ONS) team which will be under Media Operations Department's direction.

    ONS team provides balanced Games news file of professional standards written in clear concise language. Although this team does not seek to do the work of the media, it keeps the media informed of Games developments in order to help them achieve the best possible coverage. So those students have to be well prepared in not only sports news writing but also specific sports knowledge of Olympics.

    Renmin University, as one of the most prestigious universities in China, especially in the field of arts and humanities, will provide UMC volunteers free accommodations. Lectures of Chinese culture and introductions will also be presented by RUC.

    University of Missouri-Columbia is one of thirteen international universities who will recruit and train ONS volunteers for BOCOG.

    There will be 300 English native speakers trained as planned in BOCOG's Olympic News Service International Volunteers Project. Six elite cooperating Beijing Universities will take care of their housing. The international universities are mainly from the United States, Britain and Australia.

    As yet, University of Iowa and Tsinghua University have signed the cooperation files with BOCOG in May.

    In next week, BOCOG's delegation will visit three other America Universities who will sign similar documents with BOCOG in the near future.