IMPORTANT - MIT OpenCourseWare Initiative

If bridging the digital divide interests you, please read the following message and pass
on to as many people as possible.* This is a major development in academia.
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KD
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Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 19:52:48 -0400
** From: "Tracey L. Minor" <tlminor@earthlink.net (tlminor@earthlink.net)>
Subject: MIT to make nearly all course materials available free

MIT to make nearly all course materials
available free on the World Wide Web
Unprecedented step challenges 'privatization of knowledge'

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The Massachusetts Institute of Technologyin an
unprecedented step in world-wide educationannounced today it plans to make
the materials for nearly all its courses freely available on the Internet
over the next ten years.

The website for the projectMIT OpenCourseWarewould include material such
as lecture notes, course outlines, reading lists, and assignments for each
course. Over the next decade, the project expects to provide materials for
over 2,000 courses across MIT's entire curriculumin architecture and
planning, engineering, humanities, arts, social sciences, management, and
science.

MIT President Charles M. Vest said of the program: "MIT OpenCourseWare is
a bold move that will change the way the Web is used in higher education.
With the content posted for all to use, it will provide an extraordinary
resource, free of charge, which others can adapt to their own needs. We
see it as source material that will support education worldwide, including
innovations in the process of teaching and learning itself."

Professor Steven Lerman, chair of the MIT faculty, said that the project
stemmed both from enthusiasm for the opportunities that the Internet
affords for wide-spread sharing of educational ideas, and from concern
over the growing "privatization of knowledge." He noted that many
universities, including MIT, see the Internet as a means of delivering
revenue-generating distance education.

But, he said, "we also need to take advantage of the tremendous power of
the Internet to build on the tradition at MIT and in American higher
education of open dissemination of educational materials and innovations
in teaching."

The project would begin as a large-scale pilot program over the next two
years, starting with the design of the software and services needed to
support such a large endeavor, as well as protocols to monitor and assess
its utilization by faculty and students at MIT and throughout the world.
By the end of the two-year period, it is expected that materials for more
than 500 courses would be available on the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) site.

MIT sees a variety of benefits coming from the MIT OCW project:

Institutions around the world could make direct use of the MIT OCW
materials as references and sources for curriculum development. These
materials might be of particular value in developing countries that are
trying to expand their higher education systems rapidly.
Individual learners could draw upon the materials for self-study or
supplementary use.
The MIT OCW infrastructure could serve as a model for other institutions
that choose to make similar content open and available.
Over time, if other universities adopt this model, a vast collection of
educational resources will develop and facilitate widespread exchange of
ideas about innovative ways to use those resources in teaching and
learning.
MIT OCW will serve as a common repository of information and channel of
intellectual activity that can stimulate educational innovation and
cross-disciplinary educational ventures.
The program will continue the tradition of MIT's leadership in educational
innovation, as exemplified by the engineering science revolution in the
1960s. At that time, MIT engineering faculty radically revised their
curricula and produced new textbooks that brought the tools of modern
science, mathematics, and computing into the core of the engineering
curriculum. As their students joined the engineering faculties of
universities throughout the country, they took with them their own course
notes from MIT, and spread the new approach to engineering education.

In similar spirit, but with new technologies, MIT OCW will make it
possible to quickly disseminate new knowledge and educational content in a
wide range of fields. President Vest commented that the idea of
OpenCourseWare is particularly appropriate for a research university such
as MIT, where ideas and information move quickly from the laboratory into
the educational program, even before they are published in textbooks.

MIT believes that implementation of OCW will complement and stimulate
innovation in ways that may not even be envisioned at this point. "We
expect that MIT OCW will raise the tide of educational innovation within
MIT and elsewhere," said MIT Provost Robert A. Brown.

"By making up-to-date educational content widely available," he said, "OCW
will focus faculty efforts on teaching and learning on their campuses. It
also will facilitate a new style of national and global collaboration in
education through the sharing of educational content and the potential of
telecommunications for real-time interactions."

The concept of MIT OpenCourseWare was born from deliberations of a study
group chartered by MIT's Council on Educational Technology. The Council, a
group of educational leaders from throughout MIT, asked the study group to
consider ways to use Internet technology to enhance education within MIT
as well as MIT's influence on education on a global scale. The group was
composed of faculty and staff from MIT, and was assisted by consultants
from Booz-Allen & Hamilton (BAH), who are helping with organizational
aspects of the project.

The Booz-Allen team was led by BAH Vice President Reginald Van Lee. Mr.
Van Lee, an MIT alumnus, said "MIT continues its role as the preeminent,
global leader in the development and dissemination of new ideas and
knowledge. We are excited to have contributed to this innovative and
important step in the advancement of higher education."

MIT OpenCourseWare - Fact Sheet
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2001/ocw-facts.html

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