A website that could teach us a thing or two: Connexions wants to collect, distribute, re-arrange, and edit instructional materials, so as to promote education world-wide. The instructional materials are meant for everyone: from small children through primary/secondary school pupils and students to accomplished professionals. As with Wikipedia, third parties can adapt, expand, or connect the learning materials. In some cases existing contributions are being translated into further languages.

The addition of new materials is simple: first one gets an account. Then one can start with an empty page and fill it with content, or one can import existing material from other applications, for instance Word or PowerPoint. With one click on "Save", one has created a new Connexions module, which one can make available to other members [to all, really] with one click on "Publish".

One's module is then entered in the catalog, in which there are presently almost 4000 other units [i.e. modules]. One finds modules by keyword or by the corresponding category, language, or popularity.

Individual modules may also be combined into a "Course". In this way, individual teaching units that build on one another can be combined [sic]. If one hasn't understood some part of the content, there is the possibility of discussing it with others. The authors themselves also answer questions about the text and contents—contact information is appended to the end of each unit.

The texts are published under the Creative Commons license, with "some rights reserved". That means that the contents may be reproduced, distributed, publicly performed, and modifications to the text may be made, although the original author must always be cited. The "rights reserved" are thus very few, which ought to contribute to wide distribution [of the material].

Essentially, Connexions differs from other so-called Open Education Projects in three respects:

1. It doesn't collect only the teaching materials of one school or university. Every contribution--regardless of educational institution--is welcome.
2. Working with the content: the texts are not merely accessible to everyone across the world, they may be re-used, distributed, and modified with attribution to the author.
3. Everyone can participate and take a leading role in the network.

A few German texts are already present in the repository, although overall materials in English predominate. This may be due to the fact that the website is available only in English at this time. However, internationalization [of the site] is being undertaken.

Connexions was founded in 1999 under the name "Secret Web Initiative". However, the website first appeared online in 2004 and was substantially re-worked in 2005. Today, this offering [i.e. "project"] is counted among the most successful open education projects and is constantly being expanded by its members with new modules and courses.

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Click here to view the article in German.