Three years have passed since an online college was opened at Kim Il Sung University. Founded with four departments, the college now has 18 departments, and the number of students has grown from 300 up to as many as 11 000. In keeping with the trend of developing distance education worldwide, standards have been established for teaching curricula and operational system, while different processes of the preparation of teaching plans have been updated so as to cut the period of time of preparation and improve the quality steadily. A well-organized distance learning network has been laid and a lot of efforts have been channelled into creating an environment for students to attend lectures at any time and at any place without any inconvenience. As a result the distance education has paid off profusely in reality.

Students enrolled at the online college of the university from the industrial sector have made innovations in developing programs envisaged in the state IT strategy. A typical one is Saengmyongson (lifeline) 1.0, a simulation program to be used in training workers in continuous production processes, a program that is the first of its kind in the country. The successful invention was introduced in the Pukchang Thermal Power Complex. The version for training thermal power plant workers makes it possible to finish the training course in one or two years instead of the conventional period of 10 or 20 years. So it is paying off profusely in reality because power plants are short of workers, particularly skilled ones, and the training of workers is lagging behind the developing reality. A national program contest and exhibition held in November 2015 awarded a diploma of Good IT Product of National Importance to Saengmyongson 1.0.

One year later Saengmyongson 2.0 was selected as a 2016 Good IT Product of National Importance at the National IT Achievement Exhibition 2016, thus winning a Good Product diploma.

Meanwhile, other students of the online college have undertaken mammoth IT projects of provincial and national importance. Those of the computer science department developed and introduced large-size projects like Publications Distribution System, Information System for Integrated Manufacturing and Management at the Sinuiju Footwear Factory and Information System for Integrated Manufacturing and Management at the Sinuiju Streptomycin Plant, helping to put publications distribution service and operation of industrial enterprises on the IT basis.

Students majoring in agriculture are also carrying on sci-tech research projects of national importance successfully. In 2016 one of the old students who had finished a two-year course developed Ppuri (root) program, an integrated manufacturing and management system for Sukchon County Agricultural Management Committee, and introduced it widely in the agricultural sector, thus winning a certificate of registered sci-tech achievement and a patent of invention at the 31st National Sci-tech Festival.

In order to give fuller play to the advantages of distance education the college is redoubling its effort to develop a number of programs of worldwide fame, including a system of identifying learners by means of artificial intelligence technology, a real-time dialogue system between teachers and students, an enrolment management system on the basis of FID, and a general distance examination management system.