Cory Doctorow is reporting over on BoingBoing that a draft of a forthcoming copyright treaty has been leaked and it apparently contains a number of very concerning provisions—some of which so much so it’s hard to believe they could be enforced.  Here is one:

That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet — and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living — if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

Now, MIT OpenCourseWare has been accused of copyright infringement a couple of times (all instances of which were resolved by clarifying ownership of materials we believed to have been clear and none of which involved litigation).  Would this mean that the next time it happens MIT OpenCourseWare would have to be denied Internet access by MIT, who runs our origin server and thus is our ISP?  By Akamai, who handles our worldwide distribution?  Would MIT have to cut off Internet service to itself, as OCW is not a separate legal entity?

Now in addition to not being an economist, I am also not a lawyer, but as this is being reported, it ranges from confusing to very alarming.  Secret treaties that undercut the free flow of ideas and information to serve the needs of corporate interests are not a reason I voted for Obama, or rather they are, but that’s because they were the MO of the previous administration.  I have resisted jumping on the “dissapointed in Obama” bandwagon because my yardstick has always been “Better than McCain?” but this would truly disappoint.

One passage in the CED report that felt like a bit of a flat note from the OCW perspective was the following:

No one would likely argue with the proposition that the financial services sector has been continuously revolutionized by the introduction of new technologies to deal with financial information, from the invention of the telegraph to today’s electronic-banking networks. The music, video, and movie industries are being transformed as information once encoded on vinyl, 8-track tapes, CDs, or DVDs becomes detached from a physical medium and takes on the special characteristics of intangible digital data, capable of being copied and freely distributed to 6 or 60 million of one’s closest friends via peer-to-peer networks.

Information is also at the core of higher education. Institutions of higher education create knowledge and disseminate it. They pass it on generation to generation, and put it in a social context. They help students structure, organize, navigate, and produce it. How has higher education been affected by the forces that are transforming these other sectors?

Well, yes, I suppose.  The financial services example is probably closer to teaching and learning in my mind than the music/movie example.  In movies and music, the whole of the product is digitized as information.  In the financial services the products were not actually digital information, but were supported by information flows.  The the innovations (if you want to call them that) that have had the big impacts were mostly conceptual, at least as I understand them and clearly IANAE.*  The mortgage-backed derivatives were not information per se, but a new concept enabled by information technologies (sadly).

Now research is clearly about the creation and dissemination of information/knowledge, but education seems to me less so.  I’d agree that with respect to knowledge, education is about  how to “put it in a social context,” to “structure, organize, navigate, and produce it.”  But the emphasis as I understand education is very much on the social context, structuring, organizing, and navigating and less on the “it” (i.e. information).  If this were not the case, MIT would have undercut its model by releasing the information from its classes via OCW.

Some of the tacit skills for understanding social context, structuring, organizing, and navigating information are imbedded in the courseware, and this makes them a unique and valuable resource resource, but many of the tacit skills are not, or at least not accessibly so.  Virtually every conversation I’ve had with people responsible for improving educational systems who want to use OCW comes down to a discussion of how to use the materials to get students thinking critically—developing these tacit skills—rather than how do we get information to the students.  The information itself in most cases is not that hard to find.

So while I agree that information is maybe core to research, and crucial for education, I’d suggest it is the set of skills required to make information useful that are at the core of education, and they are really difficult to digitize.  Some day I expect we’ll have computers subtle enough to teach these skills (maybe sooner than we think) and it will be a boon for global education.  Information by itself, even as well contextualized as OCW is, doesn’t do this.  That’s one of the reasons we’ve never presented OCW as distance learning, but rather as educational resources.

* I am not an economist

The term “open education” means different things to different people. There are many interpretations as to what open education and content means for learning. Often the financial costs, learning environments, accreditation and the role of the faculty are a few key issues that arise when discussed amongst educators.

I thought it was suitable to explore this topic, since I am currently enrolled in 2 open education courses, EC & I 831 & CCK 09 as a non-credit student. My goal in joining these open content courses was to collaborate with other learners, share resources, & establish on-going connections beyond the scope of the course, i.e. stay connected to people in the #edtech field for information-sharing and learning support. My participation in #eci831 & #cck09 has greatly enhanced my knowledge and research for my doctorate work at UNT, and I value the introductions to various topics, presenters, and peers.

Last week, Jon Mott joined #eci831 to discuss his experiences in open education. Here are the slides:

A few key take-away points, resources & quotes include:

• Great Talk: David Wiley’s recent keynote on Open Education
• openness allows for connection, personalizing and creation: allowance to share resources, ideas & knowledge
• ability to move from passive consumption to sharing & collaborating amongst our connections
• Creative Commons is a valuable entity that allows content to be shared & accessed
• “Literacy is moving from being knowledgeable to knowledge-able.” ~Jon Mott
• MIT Open CourseWare project is a solid model that offers free content for approximately 2000 courses
• Open Courseware Consortium is a great database for other open education content
• Other examples where education is open = Education Channel of YouTube,  iTunes U, and OER Commons
• academic institutions vary their stance on content sharing, open education, etc
• help students and instructors to understand the difference between “open” and “closed” education
• need to seek sustainable models for open courseware and education
• debates and questions continue about openness in education, with regards to Learning Management Systems (LMS), credentialing, faculty role, archeticture of courses, etc.
• open education is more of a social & cultural issue, now that the technology is becoming rapidly available and accessible for learners/educators

The final thoughts prompted questions on how open education will impact our learners & how education will change in the future. More discussion about open education will continue tomorrow evening when Alan Levine joins #cck09 to share some of his thoughts around Openness & Transparency. Join in & share your two cents.

Made it for a communication piece I am working on.  It captures the external and internal growth of MIT OpenCourseWare traffic very nicely, I think.  (Hurting elbow whilst patting self on back.)

Inside and out, OCW is popular.

The Committee for Economic Development, a non-profit, non-partisan business led public policy organization (their description), has issued a really excellent report on openness in higher education.  It addresses an exhaustive array of facets to openness in the higher education context including OER, Open Access, and openness in administration and certification. The report is a great opportunity to understand the breadth of the open landscape as it stands today.

There are a few factual errors regarding OpenCourseWare that ought to be noted.  On page 18, the report vastly undercounts the number of OCW courses available through the Consortium at 5,000, when the most recent self-reported figures from the membership are closer to 13,000.

More concerning is the characterization of MIT OpenCourseWare’s agreement with Elsevier, which on page 28 is described as:

…a more straightforward and operationally simple definition of fair use so as to ease rights clearance for MIT’s OCW; Elsevier now provides blanket clearance for up to three tables and 100 words per article for thousands of Elsevier’s articles.

Our agreement with Elsevier governs our use of their materials under our open CC license and in no way defines or limits our recourse to fair use with respect to Elsevier’s or any other content owners materials.  Were we to use materials employing a fair use approach, they would have to appear on our site with all rights reserved.  Elsevier has agreed to allow OCW to publish materials under our CC By-NC-SA 3.0 license, which makes the materials available for downstream reuse.  It’s a very important distinction.

While I think that OCW has a lot to offer the schools that participate and people in developed economies, it is the impact OCW can have on the developing world that really gets me jazzed.  In particular, what OCW has to offer regions that the US has historically been at odds with.

Iran is a clear case.  A large percentage of the population is young, opportunities are limited, and the government teaches antipathy toward the US.  OCW (at least from the US schools) provides another view of the US and what it has to offer.  Here’s a snapshot of our analytics that gives me hope that we can develop a bridge to young Iranians seeking a more positive future.

Hopeful metrics.

These are 2009 visits to date.  What I like best is that there are 39 cities represented here.  A map of Afghanistan or Pakistan shows visits mostly in the main urban centers (obviously infrastructure is a big reason) but in Iran, our site is being accessed by people throughout the country in sifgnificant numbers.

Looking through site metrics for MIT OCW and noticed two interesting tidbits:

• Firefox now has a bigger market share than IE as measured in visits (41.5% vs. 40.5%)
• More than 13,000 visits to OCW have come from iPhones so far in October

Interesting stuff.

For me anyway.  NERCOMP held a session on OpenCourseWare at the Four Points Sheraton in sleepy little Norwood, MA—about a mile from my house—and what a pleasant time.  I got to see many of my favorite people from local OCW projects, who I sadly see less frequently than some of the international participants.

Eileen McMahon, Senior Instructional Designer, University of Massachusetts —Boston and Robbin Smith of Tufts OCW co-organized the session and two of my MIT colleagues—Lindsey Weeramuni and and Kate James—gave really great presentations. Former OCW Consortium Interim Executive Director and good friend Terri Bays was up from Yale and spoke as well.  And a really special surprise was seeing Kimberly Hall, a friend and former colleague from my time at Emerson College.

But just as exciting as seeing all the good folks in the community was the presence of so many regional institutions interested in OCW.  There were at least a half dozen New England colleges and universities represented that I hadn’t previously known to be interested in OCW.  It makes me reconsider the idea of a New England chapter of the OCW Consortium.  I also had the chance to say hi to Ken Udas, late of Penn State and now moved to UMass Online.  Really great to have a thought leader like Ken in the area.

All in all, a day well spent.

OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a

“free and open digital publication of high-quality university level educational materials, including syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams”  

according to the University of California at Irving website.  

In other words, OCW is educational material available to learners, students and teachers across the globe… for free. 

At MIT, http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
on the MITOpenCoureseware site, free lecture notes, videos and exams are offered for free with no registration required. They currently have 1900 courses available on the web. 

Check out the Utah State University list of courses and you’ll find a wide range of academic courses as well as extension courses such as landscaping, turf management, irrigation and vegetable gardening.  

What’s the catch? 

You can learn for free. You can educate yourself on your time schedule. You can enjoy the process of learning. You can enrich your mind.  You will not receive a degree; however, you will receive an amazing education. 

To find a course from any OCW institution, go to www.ocwconsortium.org/use/use-dynamic.html and enter your selection.

It’s like eating from a buffet table; you get to pick and choose, taste a bit of this and a taste of that.  And once you find the item (or course) that you totally consume and seek out again and again, you’ll be years ahead of the other paying students who are struggling to find out what they want to do once they graduate (besides pay back a huge loan)!

Getting an education before you head off to college may be the best thing you can do. Check out a few courses from several institutions.  Are you engaged? Do you want to learn more?  You decide. At your own pace …

What fun!

Or biomedical engineering, or thermodynamics, or a number of other topics. They’re all in the Academic Earth  collection – free online video courses, with top-notch instructors from Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, and the like. There’s also the OpenCourseware site, which aggregates more than 100 schools that make some courses available in some form (everything from just the course handouts to full video instruction), and iTunes U, which many colleges are using; K-12 is starting to get in the game.

It’s all over the op-ed pages right now: education as we’ve known it is rapidly disappearing.  Education Sector has all kinds of conversations going on right now: last week they hosted an online discussion about “school choice” (read the transcript here) – but with a focus on real choice in education writ large, not just a choice of schools.

At This Week in Education, John Thompson compiles his thoughts on the discussion, but asks “where’s the beef?” he’s looking for a repudiation of top-down,  test-scores-obsessed thinking that he sees as diametrically opposed to this new vision of education.

Mentioned in that discussion is a topic to which Bill Tucker follows up on the Quick & The Ed : this report from the Education Commission of the States on new ways to approach providing textbooks, including digital and open content.

To drill down to a STEM-specific question, at the Quick & The Ed’s sibling blog (Eduwonk), Andrew Rotherham is wondering about how to best approach the shortage of physics teachers. My two cents? This need isn’t going to go away anytime soon and we’re going to have to think differently about either a) how instruction is delivered or b) how teachers are prepared or c) both, in (relatively) esoteric subjects like this one. Put in your two cents below.

from the Chronicle of Higher Education, or perhaps I read all of the articles contained in there current issue on OCW at once—including the really nice profiles of those who benefit from it—but I didn’t have as negative a response as Stephen Downes to the lead piece. True, Utah Sate University has been mothballed, users would like accreditation and there are always those who will dis the quality of a free offering, but I think the real story here is that there 250+ other projects that have kept going in spite of the terrible economic circumstances, and they must be carrying on for a reason. Absent in the article is the question of what benefits the schools receive for their investment, which I think the Chronicle should explore.  It doen’t have the sensationality of the doom and gloom predictions, but it is probably the most interesting question to be asked.  Also interesting that buried in the report about the cost is the information that the second-largest OCW in the US costs only $120K a year to operate.  Maybe not so costly after all.

Online students want credit; colleges want a working business model

[Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education]

Kun Vapaiden ja avointen oppiresurssien tuottaminen -kurssin (aka AVO-kurssin) ensimmäisen viikon tehtävien myötä loin katsauksen Open University (UK) Open Content Initiativeen, Connexionsiin, MIT OpenCourseWareen, LeMilliin, OpenCourseWare Consortiumiin ja Wikiversityyn, tuli hieman samankaltainen olo kuin ensimmäistä kertaa loin kunnollisen katsauksen Nelliin. Oloa voi kuvata  EBSCOssakin esiintyvällä termillä library anxiety.

Näin montaa suurta projektia oli hieman vaikea lähteä lähestymään, joten katsoin ensin Richard Baraniukin (palo)puheen TEDissä vuodelta 2006 ja sen jälkeen katsoin puheen käsittelemää Connexionsia. Siinä kiinnitti heti huomiota se, että opintokokonaisuuksien sijasta lähtökohta ovat pienet moduulit, joista voidaan koota haluttuja kokonaisuuksia. Toki samahan näkyy esim. perinteisessä opiskelussa jossa pääaineen kylkeen valitaan sivuaineita ja opinnot muodostuvat eri kokoisista kursseista joiden kokoa kuvataan opintopistein. Esimerkiksi suoritan paraikaa avoimessa yliopistossa käytännöllisen filosofian opintoja, joka koostuu seuraavista “moduuleista”, eli kursseista:

• Filosofian opintoihin orientointi (0 op)
• Yliopisto-opiskelun taidot I (0 op)
• Tiedonhaku ja kirjaston käyttö (0 op)
• Yliopisto-opiskelun taidot II (0 op)
• Kf110 Johdatus filosofiaan (3 op)
• Kf131 Johdatus etiikkaan (3 op)
• Fte170 Johdatus logiikkaan (5 op)
• Fte140 Johdatus tieto-oppiin (3 op)
• Kf120 Johdatus filosofian historiaan (5 op)
• Kf132 Johdatus yhteiskuntafilosofiaan (3 op)
• Kf140 Johdatus yhteiskuntatieteiden filosofiaan (3 op)

Yhdessä nämä siis muodostavat käytännöllisen filosofian perusopinnot, mutta moduuleja voi suorittaa yksittäinkin.

AVO-kurssilla mieleen on muutenkin tullut avoin yliopisto-järjestelmä, jossa siis suoritetaan yliopisto-opintoja olematta välttämättä varsinaisesti opiskelija. Joitain kursseja voi suorittaa etäopintoina ja käydä vain tenteissä. Tällöin oppimateriaalina ovat joko verkkomateriaalit jonkinlaisessa oppimisympäristössä tai kirjat (tai näiden yhdistelmä). Kirjoihin perustuvat etäopinnot ovat sikäli vapaampia, että kirjat ovat julkaistuja ja sijaitsevat siis yhteiskunnassa. Niitä voi siten hankkia eri paikoista, joko jostain läheisestä tai kaukaisesta kirjastosta tai kirjakaupasta. Vain oppimisympäristöissä oleva materiaali ei välttämättä ole julkaistua eikä siihen ole pääsyä ilman johonkin kurssille kuulumista.

Esimerkiksi yliopiston perus- ja aineopintoja tai muita opintokokonaisuuksia vastaavia kokonaisuuksia voi Connexionsissa  rakentaa “linssien” avulla ja niitä voivat koota yhtä hyvin oppilaitokset kuin yksittäiset käyttäjätkin. Käyttöliittymään kaipailin parempia selailuominaisuuksia kun moduulit kerran on ihan hyvin kuvailtu avainsanoin. Connecxionsissa seikkailemalla törmääväni moduulit olivat laajuudeltaan vaihtelevia, ja olisin kaivannut jonkinlaisia harjoituksia joka moduulin yhteyteen; muuten ne näyttäytyvät lähinnä aika tavallisina sivuina, ilman erityistä pedagogista. Suurimmassa osassa katsomiani, sattumanvaraisia moduuleja oli kuitenkin opetuksellinen lähtökohta näkvissä.

Luulisi myös, että jos Connexionsin sisällöt ovat hyviä ja arvostettuja, niihin törmäisi googlaillessa tehdessä ja Wikipedian lähteinä. Huomasitteko muut AVO-kurssilaiset muuten, että Connexionin aineistoja saa helposti tilattua tarvepainatteina l. print on-demandina?

Seuraavaksi katsoin Open University OCI:a ja ajattelin, että avoinyliopisto.fi voisi olla jotain samanlaista. Open Universityn toiminta on ainakin virallisesti tunnustetumman oloista, esim. opiskelusta voi ilmeisesti saada opintotukea (jos on Iso-Britannialainen). Open University on siis ainakin jossain määrin “oikeaa” opiskelua, ja aineiston ympärillä on olemassa muuta opiskelua tukevia resursseja. OCIn aineistot ovat kuitenkin näkyvillä myös muille kuin OU:le rekisteröityneille opiskelijoille, toisin kuin esim. Helsingin avoimen yliopiston aineistot, jotka ovat ainakin oman kokemukseni mukaan olleet lähinnä melko perinteisiä, listamuotoisia powerpointteja sekä toisinaan muutaman sivun valokopioita kirjoista tai aikakausijulkaisuista.

OCIn kurssin näyttivät  varsin kattavilta ja selvemmin järjestäytyneiltä ja toisaalta suuremmislle kokonaisuuksille kuin Connexionin moduulit ja moduulikokoelmat. Vaikkei suomalainen avoin yliopistosysteemi alkaisikaan aineistojen vapaaseen jakoon OER-tyyliin, jään OU:n webbisivult akaipailemaan esim. kalenteritoimintoja.

MITin OpenCourseWare on klassikko ja melko hyvin tunnettu avointen opintomateriaalien varasto. Muistelen sieltä jotain joskus katsoneenikin, MITin OCW:ssähän on luentoja videoituna. Nyt katsomieni muutamien kurssien aineistot eivät hämmästyksekseni kuitenkaan olleet sellaisenaan verkossa, vaan esim. teksteistä oli vain viitteet kirjoihin jotka kurssilla luetaan.

MIT on osa OpenCourseWare -konsortiota, kuten parisataa muutakin oppilaitosta. Euroopasta ei ole montaakaan, Espanjaa ja Iso-Britanniaa lukuunottamatta. Listalla on kuitenkin TU Delft, jossa vierailin pari viikkoa sitten. OCW:n osallistujalista ei kuitenkaan kerro paljoakaan, sillä eri oppilaitoksien panos on eri kokoinen.

LeMillissä esitellään myös esimerkiksi opetusmenetelmiä ja sivusto on muutenkin enemmänkin opettamista sekä sen suunnittelua ja järjestämistä kuin opiskelua tukeva. Suomenkielisessä LeMillissä näkyy tämän AV-kurssin vetäjien nimet monessa, monessa kohtaa.

Suomenkielisessä Wikiopistossa (l. Wikiversityssä) ei tässä vaiheessa ole kovin laajalti kursseja, lukupiirejä tai muita opintoja, ne ovat keskittyneet lähinnä “kuorolle saarnaamiseen”. Tämä on kuitenkin luonnollista kun suomalainen Wikiopisto on vielä syntyvaiheessa ja tarvitsee itselleen onnistuneita caseja. Tämä AVO-kurssi on yksi sellainen, ja toisaalta myös eräänlainen kouluttajakoulutus.

Kaikissa nyt katsotuissa oppiresurssisivuistoissa on immateriaalioikeuksen hallintaan käytössä Creative Commons -lisenssiperhe. Wikiopisto käyttää lisäksi tarttuvaa CC Share Alike -lisenssiä. Osa sivustoista sallii kurssien muokkaamisen suoraan omilla sivuillaan.

“Oikeasti tapahtneiden”, eli sellaiseten kurssien joihin on liittynyyt jotain luentoja tai keskustelutilaisuuksia, siirtäminen avoimeksi oppiresurssiksi ei ole suoraviivaista, vaan vaatii toimitustyötä. Jotkut nyt näkemäni kurssit ovat kin tämän takia hankalasti lähestyttäviä, jos esim. siihen liittyiä luentoja ei ole taltioitu. Tällöin vaikka kurssiin liittyvää aineistoa ja rakennetta on vapaasti saatavilla, ei kurssi kokonaisuudessaan sitä ole.

Niin tai näin, näiden selailu on oikeastaan sangen koukuttavaa

Avoimet oppiresurssit–hippien näpertelyä ja eettisen erinomaisuuden todistelua vai oikea vaihtoehto laajamittaiselle oppimateriaalituotannolle? Mitähän ihan oikeat opettajat tällaisesta ovat mieltä? Liian vaikeaa, helpompi saada opetussuunnitelma ja painetut kirjat kovin, kovin ahtaaksi käyneelle työpöydälleen? En usko että massaopettamisen (peruskoulu, lukio, ammattikoulut, yliopistot, AMK:it) resurssina nämä vielä vähään aikaan Suomessa tulevat olemaan suurikaan juttu (toki yksittäisiä ja verkostoituneita opettajia löytynee) vaikka heille tällaista on mahdollista markkinoida, mutta esim. työpaikoilla nämä voisivat olla arvossaan jos vaan löytäisivät tiensä sinne.  Oikeiden opettajien tavoittaminen näillä on varamasti helpompaa, kun ovat keskittyneitä oppilaitoksiin ja tämä on kuitenkin heidän alaansa. Voisin kuitenkin omassakin työssä voisi aivan hyvin ehdottaa että alettaisi käymään jotain näitä jo olemassaolevia aineistoja läpi jonkinlaisella opiskeluporukalla.

October 7th, 2009

By Han Feng

LOGAN — On-campus students may have not realized Utah State University’s determination to pause the backing of its OpenCourseWare (OCW) project due to lack of funding. The somber news has already triggered a rash of discussions among OCW users and professionals.

The concept of OCW was first generated by a group of students and faculty members at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001 . This non-degree granting project aims at issuing special licenses to acknowledge public users’ right to use, reuse, copy, transfer, contribute, and redistribute university-level course materials. In 2004 the university’s Open Content Education advocacy groups, including David Wiley, the former Director of the USU Center for Open and Sustainable Learning, introduced OCW to Utah State University, .

Preston Parker, a lecturer in the department of journalism and communication, was one of the faculty members who proposed the idea of the USU OCW project five years ago. He said $1.5 million from the Hewlett Foundation initially funded the project, but the foundation took the money away from the USU OCW project three years later because of an audit report that speculated there was mismanagement within the project.

Despite a recent signs of a turnaround in the battered economy, significant budget reduction from the Utah State Legislature is imposed on most state institutions. Until February 2009 the state ceased funding to the USU OCW project. Consequently, even as the project continued to grow, less-endowed fundings have finally resulted in the project fading into a glimmer.

“We have spent the last six months scrambling to find a way to keep the lights on,” said Marion Jensen, the former project director who was laid off this June. “We have sought after state money, private money, grant money, but we found nothing.”

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, as the third most visited website hosted by Utah State University, the launch of OCW project gave instant publicity to the university’s academic excellence. Before the university made the decision to pause the backing of its OCW project, it offered nearly 85 online courses from 20 academic departments.

Users have no doubt that the project increases the reach of educational opportunities dramatically. “The USU OCW classes are flexible tools beyond the classroom,” said Xin Liu, a USU student majoring in Accounting, adding that she used to study General Ecology through the USU OCW web site. “I did not earn any university credit for doing so and it’s just my curiosity to fulfill. I can become a lifelong learner as long as OCW exists.”

Many faculty members were working vigorously and closely with the USU OCW project, but passion alone couldn’t keep it going. “The web site remains up. There are only one or two faculty members working with the project to maintain the site without gaining any kind of assistance or instruction,” Parker said.

Today over 300 institutions provide over 9,000 courses based on OCWs and the benefits of such collaboration are well documented. Students and faculty members at Utah State University are expecting the administrators to resume the project in order to provide world citizens with more opportunities to access high quality knowledge and expertise.

“We are hoping the university to recognize the value of the OpenCourseWare project and start paying that,” Parker said.

Even though the USU OCW web site remains up, it was last updated a year ago. To find available courses offered by Utah State University OpenCourseWare check the web site, ocw.usu.edu .

Even though the web site remains up, it was last updated a year ago.

Especially for my physics students — I just want to rejoice in the OpenCourseWare project and in MIT professor Walter Lewin’s significant contributions — Dr. Lewin’s lectures feature fantastic demonstrations and clear, lucid explanations — he is a very sharp guy and a rich, delightful character who is as entertaining as he is insightful. Introductory mechanics lectures can be found here.

Copy and paste the following if the link does not work:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/VideoLectures/index.htm

Having rejoiced — we come down from the mountain top [the swing], and get to work by viewing and summarizing the first five lectures [yes, this is homework for my dear physheads-- Due October 5, 2009]

2009 : Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) OpenCourseWare (“Lecture Notes” uniquement)

• Anthropology
  • MIT Course 21A.100 – Introduction to Anthropology (Fall 2004)
  • MIT Course 21A.219 11.163J 17.249J – Law and Society (Spring 2003)
• Biology
  • MIT Course 7.013 – Introductory Biology (Spring 2006)
  • MIT Course 7.020 / 10.702 – Experimental Biology & Communication (Spring 2005)
  • MIT Course 7.020 CI / 10.702 CI – Experimental Biology – Communications Intensive (Spring 2005)
  • MIT Course 7.030 – Genetics (Fall 2004)
  • MIT Course 7.510 – Graduate Biochemistry (Fall 2001)
  • MIT Course 7.91J / 7.36J / 20.490J – Foundations of Computational and Systems Biology (Spring 2004)
• Brain and Cognitive Sciences
  • MIT Course 9.00 – Introduction to Psychology (Fall 2004)
  • MIT Course 9.01 – Introduction to Neuroscience (Fall 2007)
• Health Sciences and Technology
  • MIT Course HST.035 – Principle and Practice of Human Pathology (Spring 2003)
  • MIT Course HST.151 – Principles of Pharmacology (Spring 2005)
  • MIT Course HST.508 – Genomics and Computational Biology (Fall 2002)
  • MIT Course HST.542J – Quantitative Physiology Organ Transport Systems (Spring 2004)
  • MIT Course HST.921 / 922 – Information Technology in the Health Care System of the Future (Spring 2007)
  • MIT Course HST.950J / 6.872J – Medical Computing (Spring 2003)
  • MIT Course HST.951J / 6.873J – Medical Decision Support (Fall 2005)
• Political Science
  • MIT Course 17.045J – Power Interpersonal, Organizational and Global Dimensions (Fall 2005)
  • MIT Course 17.125 – The Politics of Global Financial Relations (Fall 2007)
  • MIT Course 17.315 – Comparative Health Policy (Fall 2004)
  • MIT Course 17.420 – Causes and Prevention of War (Spring 2005)
  • MIT Course 17.874 – Quantitative Research Methods: Multivariate (Spring 2004)
• Sloan School of Management
  • MIT Course 15.062 – Data Mining (Spring 2003)
  • MIT Course 15.352 – Managing Innovation Emerging Trends (Spring 2005)
  • MIT Course 15.356 – How to Develop “Breakthrough” Products and Services (Spring 2004)
  • MIT Course 15.402 – Finance Theory II (Spring 2003)
  • MIT Course 15.433 – Investments (Spring 2003)
  • MIT Course 15.501 – Introduction to Financial and Managerial Accounting (Spring 2004)
  • MIT Course 15.518 – Taxes and Business Strategy (Fall 2002)
  • MIT Course 15.615 – Law for the Entrepreneur and Manager (Spring 2003)
  • MIT Course 15.617 – The Law of Corporate Finance and Financial Markets (Spring 2004)
  • MIT Course 15.649 – The Law of Mergers and Acquisitions (Spring 2003)
  • MIT Course 15.810 – Introduction to Marketing (Spring 2005)
  • MIT Course 15.821 – Listening to the Customer (Fall 2002)
  • MIT Course 15.822 – Strategic Marketing Measurement (Fall 2002)
  • MIT Course 15.967 – Managing and Volunteering in the Non-Profit Sector (Spring 2005)
  • MIT Course 15.997 – Advanced Corporate Risk Management (Spring 2007)

2009 : Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH)

• Johns Hopkins Public Health Preparedness Programs (JHSPHPP)

  • Agriculture, Food and Water
    • Biological Agents of Water and Foodborne Bioterrorism
    • Introduction to the Detection of Microbial Indicators and Pathogens in Food and Water
    • Food Safety
    • Water Safety
    • Water Safety – A Case Study
  • Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosive-related Trainings
    • Introduction to Chemical Agents
    • Monitoring Chemical Agents
    • Introduction to Weapons of Mass Destruction (Awareness-level)
    • Introduction to Weapons of Mass Destruction (Intermediate level)
  • Conference Archives
    • Emergency Preparedness Planning For Colleges and Universities
    • Risk Communication What Every Public Health Practitioner Needs to Know
  • General Public Health Preparedness
    • Environmental Health Sciences: Principles Applicable to Terror Preparedness
    • Improving Understanding and Collaboration Among First Responders
    • Personal Preparedness Planning
    • Public Health Preparedness Exercises From Design to Evaluation
    • Risk Communication During a Time of Crisis: How to Talk to People About Disasters
    • Risk Communication Strategies for Public Health Preparedness
  • Infectious Disease and Vaccines
    • Ecological Principles of Disease Systems Population Interactions and Dynamics
    • Emerging Infectious Diseases
    • Genomics and Infectious Disease
    • How Do Virus Epidemics Emerge
    • Measuring Disease Dynamics in Populations
  • Legal Issues
    • Public Health Law for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response
    • Legal Bases for Public Health Preparedness for Terrorism
  • Mental Health Preparedness
    • Disaster Mental Health Intervention
    • Disaster Mental Health Planning
    • Introduction to Mental Health and Disaster Preparedness
    • Mental Health Self-Care
    • Psychological First Aid Competencies for Public Health Workers
    • Psychology and Crisis Response

• MidAtlantic Public Health Training Center (MAPHTC)

  • Combating Influenza Through Regulation and Immunization
  • Howard County to San Francisco Health Care for All
  • Maintaining Effective Public Health Partnerships
  • Maryland HIV / AIDS Update

• JHSPH OpenCourseWare (“Lecture Notes” uniquement)

  • Course 140.651.01 – Methods in Biostatistics I
  • Course 180.601.81 – Environmental Health
  • Course 221.688.81 – Social and Behavioral Foundations of Primary Health Care
  • Course 222.641.81 – Principles of Human Nutrition
  • Course 222.649.01 – International Nutrition
  • Course 306.680.81 – Ethics of Human Subject Research
  • Course 340.627.81 – Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases
  • Course 550.630.01 – Public Health Biology
  • Course 550.694.81 – Fundamentals of Epidemiology I
  • Course – Personal Preparedness Planning For Public Health Workers
  • Course – Public Health Practice 101
  • Course – Web 2.0: Risks for STI/HIV – Opportunities for Prevention

• NIMS Courses (Lecture uniquement)

  • IS-800.B National Response Framework, An Introduction
  • IS-700.A National Incident Management System (NIMS), An Introduction
  • IS-200.HC Applying ICS to Healthcare Organizations
  • IS-100.HC Introduction to the Incident Command System for Healthcare/Hospitals

Wish me luck.

I’ve been determined to learn programming for some time now, but haven’t had any success teaching myself.  Most of the resources I’ve found have assumed I already know the basic concepts of programming which I don’t.  I was getting discouraged until I recently ran into MIT OpenCourseWare.  It turns out MIT has begun offering their courses for free online!  This is amazing.  I want to learn programming so that I can do all aspects of game development myself, and now I can sit in on a class (a freaking MIT class no less) and learn for free?!  Sign me up!

The MIT course I’m taking (that just sounds awesome) is 6.00 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming.

Useful Resource #2:  MI-freaking-T

OpenCourseWare classes typically include:

Syllabus

Readings

Lecture videos

Assignments

Exams

Knowledge

They do not include:

The ability to ask questions or get help

Credit or a grade for the class

Certificate or diploma

Welcome back to our UMass Boston OpenCourseware Blog!

The OpenCourseware project here at The University of Massachusetts Boston is quickly gaining momentum. In preparation for our new initiative to increase retention, we are adding key members of the UMass Boston Community to our advising team. The newest member of our team is University Advising Center Director Gail Stubbs.

Director Stubbs has extensive experience fostering positive relations to support academic achievement. We are proud to have her on our team. Director Stubbs has been instrumental to our newest initiative’s growing success. We will be able to speak more specifically about this new project in the coming weeks.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to us through our site’s feedback form. We review our feedback everyday. When appropriate, we strive to respond within 72 hours. Your congruent feedback helps us grow to meet your needs, so please drop us a line.

UMass Boston Expands OpenCourseWare Project

August 11, 2009
by Office of Communications

The University of Massachusetts Boston has been awarded a $60,000 grant from the Boston Foundation to expand the university’s OpenCourseWare offerings, with the aim of increasing the retention rate of students who enter the university as freshmen from Boston Public Schools.

Launched in late 2007, UMass Boston’s OpenCourseWare site (http://www.ocw.umb.edu) currently contains material from 24 courses in a variety of disciplines. The grant will fund the publication of the archives of 12 additional courses required by undergraduate students to earn a bachelor’s degree. It will also fund development of workshops to be attended by Boston high school teachers in the summer of 2010 at UMass Boston. Teachers will be trained on how to use OpenCourseWare resources and will be provided with strategies for using and integrating them into their classrooms so that students are better prepared when they enter UMass Boston.

“If students can be introduced to a university course syllabus and course materials in high school, they will be much better prepared and likely more successful when they arrive at UMass Boston,” said Brian White, an associate professor of biology at UMass Boston who has published two of his courses on the OpenCourseWare site.

OpenCourseWare is free and open digital publications of educational materials organized as courses. The initiative was started by faculty at MIT in 2000. It has grown into a global movement with nearly 200 members worldwide. Some other American universities publishing OpenCourseWare include Tufts University, the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Utah State University, the University of California’s campuses in Irvine and Berkeley, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

“This is a significant expansion of our OpenCourseWare offerings, and we’re thankful for the Boston Foundation support,” said UMass Boston Chancellor Keith Motley. “This grant will help students coming from the Boston Public Schools, as well as those from high schools across the state and country, succeed at UMass Boston.”

The publication of course archives cannot be mandated by the university and done only with the permission of faculty who developed the course. They retain the rights to their intellectual property and share them under a Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org/).

About UMass Boston
With a growing reputation for innovative research addressing complex urban issues, the University of Massachusetts Boston, metropolitan Boston’s only public university, offers its diverse student population both an intimate learning environment and the rich experience of a great American city. UMass Boston’s seven colleges and graduate schools serve more than 14,000 students while engaging local, national, and international constituents through academic programs, research centers, and public service activities. To learn more about UMass Boston, visit http://www.umb.edu.

Tags:  opencourseware distance learning

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Original article here: http://umb.edu/index.php/news/entry/umass_boston_expands_opencourseware_project/

With the help of a dedicated student, we’ve just caught up with our inventory of the content on the MIT OpenCourseWare site, and we can definitively say it’s bigger than a breadbox:

1,935 courses =

17,531 lecture notes

1,310 labs

9,460 assignments
2,359 assignment solutions

705 projects
283 project solutions

980 exams
467 exam solutions

Some additional context around the issue of student use of MIT OpenCourseWare.  I happen to have had to pull together a basic profile of student use, the substance of which is included below.  In addition to being as big a user group as independent learners, students also come to the site with greater frequency and tend to have a longer history of coming to the site.

Table 4 is interesting on a number of fronts. The question was “What three types of content were most useful to you in completing the task for which you came to the site today?”  It highlights the value of video (keep in mind that only 30 of 1930+ courses have video lectures) and it also shows the value of the text-based content as well.  In particular, assignment and exam solutions are interesting in that they illustrate the value to students of being able to self-assess.  All of this materials data needs to be viewed in the light of production cost as well, with video still being (for us anyway) significantly more costly to produce.

STUDENT USAGE FINDINGS

STUDENT USER PROFILE

Students are 42% of our visitors, with students accounting for 50-58% of total audience in the developing regions of East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

Students visit with greater frequency than other visitor types.
- 62% of returning students report visiting the site daily or weekly (Self learners – 49%; Educators – 39%)

Retuning students have made more prior visits than other roles.
- 39% of retuning students have made 25 or more prior visits to the site (Self learners – 32%; Educators – 32%)

Student use internationally is predominantly at the undergraduate level.

STUDENT USE PROFILE

Students use the site primarily to enhance personal knowledge and complement courses they are taking and enjoy high rates of success in doing so.

Across all scenarios, students value video lectures, lecture notes, assignments and solutions, and exams and solutions, and animations/simulations.

For as long as I’ve been evaluating the use of MIT OpenCouseWare, our highest-level user profile has been relatively consistent. Our first evaluation put educators at around 13% of our audience, students around 40%, and self learners at 53% (these figures are from memory).

The numbers shifted somewhat over the years, with educators moving steadily upward to 15%. Students settled somewhat lower to around 30%, and self learners fell to around 50%. The numbers all seemed to be moving in comfortably predictable trend lines.

At the same time, I knew as far back as 2006 that Firefox was skewing our data collection with its efficient pop-up blocker. In the notes from the report released that year, I described this impact. I also had it in my to-do list to implement a system that would correct for this issue.

For the 2009 survey I finally got a system implemented that did not rely on pop-ups, and while I understood that Firefox was having an impact, I didn’t understand the implications of the impact until after I looked over the numbers. What I might in retrospect have predicted but only became clear in data analysis was the differential adoption of Firefox across the user profiles.

Firefox, it turned out, was being adopted at a significantly higher rate by students than by educators or self learners.  In the 2009 survey, 57% or educators and self learners were using Firefox, while a staggering 67% of students reported using the browser.   As market share of Firefox among students grew, they were being disproportionately underrepresented in our survey results.

For the ‘09 survey, the profile numbers are 9% educators, 42% students and 42% self learners.  This shift isn’t earth-shattering, I think, but it does raise some interesting questions.  With the old numbers, it could be easily argued that the predominance of MIT OpenCourseWare’s impact was in the informal learning sphere, and certainly US self learners continue to be the single biggest block of OCW users.  With the new numbers, it appears that OCW is having more of an impact on formal educational systems than has been apparent to date.

No doubt some of this impact in educational systems is “informal,” use of OCW as supplementary resources not directly incorporated into formal instruction.  Among both students and educators, enhancing personal knowledge (informal study) is a primary scenario of use.  But that informal study is occuring within a specific context, with other resources—libraries, peers, instructors—available.

It may be a while until I understand all of the implications of this, but I do think it means we need to look more closely on campus, and try to better understand how OCW-type resources are reshaping the formal educational experience.

I en pressemelding fra 4. august erklærer NTNU at de vil legge ut flere forelesninger på iTunes under OpenCourseWare merket som MIT startet for noen år siden. MIT legger ut så og si alt de har av forelesninger som videoer på sine sider, inkludert nedlastbare ekstramateriale, tilgjengelig for alle verdens studenter og interesserte. NTNU vil tydeligvis også gi inntrykk av å bidra til en bedre og mer åpen undervisningsverden gjennom dette tiltaket, men det har hittil skortet litt innholdssiden (ikke så rart da de kunngjorde dette for få uker siden!).

Da jeg sjekket på sidene deres var det noen få forelesninger ute, fordelt på seks fagområder, og ingen av dem var av umiddelbar interesse for min del. Det jeg lette etter var nemlig videoforelesningene fra et fjernkurs i Tallteori jeg fikk delta i ifjor høst, men det var ingenting å spore av dette. Jeg sendte da et forespørsel til matematisk institutt om å legge ut videoforelesningene fra NTNU Delta-prosjektet (fjernundervisning/etterutdanning), siden ressursene allerede var lagt ned i å produsere godt undervisningsmateriale, og mye av jobben derfor allerede var gjort.

Jeg fikk idag et meget positivt svar fra kontorsjefen på instituttet:

Jeg vil bare tilføye at siden jeg sendte mailen nedenfor, har snøballen begynt å rulle. DELTAs leder er svært positiv til din idé, og har jeg vært i kontakt med NTNUs sentraladministrasjon for å sjekke ut rettighetsspørsmål. Vi trenger en godkjenning fra de som har forelest kursene og eventuelle tredjeparter, men dette skal vi forsøke å få til. Det må bare til litt kontraktsarbeid så skal vi være oppe og gå.

Det gikk knapt en helg fra jeg spurte dem til jeg fikk dette (oppfølgnings-) svaret! Ikke mye administrasjon i veien for effektivitet på NTNU

Så kanskje jeg i fremtiden kan ta litt av æren for at utvalget av forelesninger økte dramatisk på iTunes?