The School of Distance Education of China University of Petroleum -Beijing was established in 2001. Adhering to the university's distinctive petroleum and petrochemical characteristics, the school relies on the university's strong faculty and high-quality teaching resources, focuses on the petroleum and petrochemical industry, and conducts high-level and post-secondary education for the society, and has established 17 majors in petroleum engineering, chemical engineering and technology, geological engineering, mechanical design and manufacturing, automation, safety engineering, oil and gas storage and transportation engineering, civil engineering, mechatronics technology, applied chemical technology, business management, computer science and technology, marketing, administrative management, business English, etc. The school has 33 remote off-campus learning centers, more than 100 authorized Ao Peng learning centers, 4 Zhijin Education Authorized Learning Centers, and 17 Hongcheng Education Authorized Learning Centers.

The school is committed to applying new educational technologies, concept development and production of online education and teaching resources, comprehensively promoting the construction of MOOC courses and “micro-curriculum”, actively participating in the construction of China's MOOC curriculum alliance, realizing the constructing and sharing of resources. The school has independently constructed and introduced several online experiments, covering all the majors except business English, to comprehensively enhance students' knowledge storage and hands-on operation ability. Besides, the school has vigorously promoted the construction of online course supporting materials, and successively published nearly 80 practical and applicable distance education series teaching materials and actively explored corresponding e-textbook construction programs, to strive to meet the learning needs of students to a greater extent.

The school has established a teaching mode based on student self-learning, teacher-led, teaching management and learning support services to ensure the "excellent guidance, individual counseling and effective supervision". Making full use of the interactive mode of multimedia and the Internet, the school has provided the multi-oriented and multi-level guidance, inspectors, and student support services. The school has built a bridge between school, students, and study. Through the continuous introduction of brand campus cultural activities, the school has created a high-quality campus culture, improved students' comprehensive quality, and enhanced students' sense of identity and belonging.

The school adheres to the standard management, in accordance with the requirements of ISO9001 quality management certification and supervision and audit, continuously improves the work process and rules and regulations. The school has been obtaining the quality management system certification, has realized the effective operation and continuous improvement of the system, and has ensured that all work has rules and regulations.

The School of Distance Education will continue to uphold the core values of “Responsibility, Innovation, Collaboration, Dedication”, carry forward the spirit of “One Heart, One Heart, and Excellence”, keep in mind the mission of “Dedication to Resources, Advanced Technology, Management Standards” "People-oriented distance education service", strive to achieve the vision of "opening education college that is satisfied by students, proud of employees, highly respected by society, highly creative and influential", strive to establish a multi-level, multi-modal, all-round online education system that integrates non-academic education during the period of the 13th Five-Year Plan, and create the school image of “Your Dream, My Responsibility”.