Open Course Ware

Open courses are online courses that are usually created by institutions (universities) and shared online for free. Donors, such as the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, often fund these initiatives. The university to that was the first to offer many of their courses through Open Course Ware was MIT, but now other institutions, such as Yale, have joined too. The courses offered are often introductory courses. Content can be downloaded as files or even as audio or video (to, for instance, iTunes U)

The reason why institutions might want to do this is to advertise the fact that they are educational leaders. It is in the institution’s best interest to get their stamp on course content that is available online. MIT or Yale courses would probably have a higher proportion required textbooks written by MIT faculty or published by Yale. The courses probably also focus on the research done at the institution, so that again it reinforces the idea that the institution is at the forefront of new developments in education, science, etc.

I am not quite as certain about the benefit to the faculty who developed these courses (it is their intellectual property?). Of course, if they wrote the textbook it would have a financial pay off, but otherwise they might miss some financial gain now that the university is not charging money. Then again, what would a faculty member do with the content? Start their own University?

The benefits for me as I develop my own online courses are:

1. serve as source of ideas on what topics should be included in a course, what readings to include (syllabus) or even what to present in a lecture (video).
2. The courses often have videos of lectures that I could link to from my own course website. I may not use all the videos but there is a lecture by a famous scientist that would fit well.
3. No registration ($) required.

Some disadvantages:

1. Courses are not rated - so how to tell if the syllabus and course are any good?
2. It puts the source institution in the spot light - not my home institution.
3. There is no certificate or degree associated with completing these courses.
   

I explored the Open Yale courses and did not find anything that was similar to the courses I am developing. There were actually not that many classes available, but that may change in the future. MITOpenCourseWare has far more courses available but most of them just include syllabus, calendar, readings, lecture synopses and assignments – no video or audio, this may be because this initiative is older. This would suffice for getting ideas about what to put into a course but could not provide actual course content.

Responses from fellow TechTools students:

"I would like to share another advantage especially for non-US students. Students from abroad are new to the US educational system. Of course, preparing for exams like TOEFL and GRE gives them a glimpse. Still, it can be a completely different educational experience.

If these students get to see open courses and have a rough idea how to look up calenders and then decide how many courses they can manage in a trimester/semester, how the grading system works (of course, every course and every instructor has their own way of assessments) and most important that participation in the in-class as well other group activities is very important. I think open course ware can be a prototype of what they are going to experience." (NMV).

"I connected with your concern over the intellectual property issues and like the way you phrased the argument distinguishing between issues in media and print.

It seems so clear, at least to me that there is no difference, why does a delivery method present a challenge to IP. I am not sure I understand why the lines become so blurred in digital media. As faculty we copyright our print lectures, class materials and publications, why are digital presentations treated differently? The only reason I can come up with is monetizing for the institution. There must be a higher value placed on the digital copy because it can be replicated and/or shared via so many delivery methods" (HL)

Other links:

http://www.academicearth.org/ (Cal courses)
http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

http://www.ocwconsortium.org/courses/ocwsites

(this site even links to non-English courses).

A source for K-12 syllabi/lesson plans:

http://www.oercommons.org/ (requires free registration).
Jason: it might be interesting to have students explore this repository for lessons that they think would work well in their schools and/or adapt the lesson based upon what they learn in class.