Shawdesh desk:

UK universities are testing a new online teaching link for students in China – which will require course materials to comply with Chinese restrictions on the internet.

It enables students in China to keep studying UK degrees online, despite China’s limits on internet access.

But it means students can only reach material on an “allowed” list, BBC reported.

Universities UK said it was “not aware of any instances when course content has been altered”.

And the universities’ body rejected that this was accepting “censorship”.

A spokeswoman said the project would allow students in China to have better access to UK courses “while complying with local regulations”.

The pilot project involves four Russell Group universities – King’s College London, Queen Mary University of London, York and Southampton – and is run by JISC, formerly the Joint Information Systems Committee, which provides digital services for UK universities.

China’s internet censorship means that some websites are filtered or blocked – and there have been concerns that students in China could not study online, such as clicking on an embedded link in a scholarly article.

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