OER Open Courseware

Lesson Components Fast Fact Skill/Objective Success Indicators Introduction Activity Review questions Resources

Fast Fact MIT first announced its Open Courseware program in 2001. The OCW provides open access to course materials for up to 1,550 MIT courses, representing 34 departments and all five MIT schools. The goal is to include materials from all MIT courses by 2008.

Skills/Objectives Learners will be able to: Identify sources of open courseware for use in their own teaching disciplines. Locate at lesson in an open course to modify for use in their own teaching.

Success Indicators Posted lesson plan that repurposes learning content from OCW for learner's own teaching.

Introduction The OpenCourseWare movement began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2002 and has now spread to some 120 other universities worldwide. According to UC Irvine: "OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a free and open digital publication of high quality university-level educational materials, often including syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams. Open educational resources are based on the notion that knowledge and education are common goods that must be supported by a defined community." While OCW initiatives typically do not provide a degree, credit, certification, or access to instructors, the materials are made available, for free, under open licenses for use and adaption by educators and learners anywhere. DefinitionAccording to the Open Courseware Consortium: "An OpenCourseWare site is a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses...is available for use and adaptation under an open license...does not typically provide certification or access to instructors." The OpenCourseWare Finder Finder currently shows search results from: MIT OCW Utah State University OCW Johns Hopkins School of Public Health OCW Tufts University OCW Foothill De-Anza SOFIA Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative Other universities with open courseware include: University of California, Irvine University of Notre Dame University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering Stanford on iTune Penn State Wikiversity is a online group of educators engaged in a collaborative learning effort using wiki software, which makes collaboration easy. Take the guided tour to discover more. HippoCampus, a project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE), provides high-quality, multimedia content on general education subjects to high school and college students free of charge.

Activity Experience Use the OpenCourseWare Finder Finder to search for Open Courseware in your teaching discipline. Listen to a lecture podcast at Stanford on iTunes or Berkeley. ReflectParticipate in the Wikiversity Motto contest by posting your choice and why on the wiki or at the Wikiversity Colloquium. Apply Develop a lesson plan that repurposes learning content from OCW for your own teaching. Consider adding your own course to Wikiuniversity. Use the tutorial provided.

Review Questions What are some of the sources of open courseware? Which sources of open courseware provide learning materials that can be modified for use in the learner's own teaching?

Resources How the Open Source Movement Has Changed Education: 10 Success Stories The Promise of Open Educational Resources