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MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) is an initiative of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...
(MIT) to publish all of the educational materials from its
undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...
- and graduate-level courses online, freely and openly available to anyone, anywhere. The project was announced on April 4, 2001, and uses Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. The program was originally funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and MIT. Currently, MIT OpenCourseWare is supported by MIT, corporate underwriting, major gifts, and donations from site visitors. The initiative inspired a number of other institutions to make their course materials available as
open educational resources Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials intentionally created and licensed to be free for the end user to own, share, and in most cases, modify. The term "OER" describes publicly accessible materials and ...
. , over 2,400 courses were available online. While a few of these were limited to chronological reading lists and discussion topics, a majority provided homework problems and exams (often with solutions) and lecture notes. Some courses also included interactive web demonstrations in
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...
, complete textbooks written by MIT professors, and
streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content i ...
video lectures. , 100 courses included complete video lectures. The videos were available in streaming mode, but could also be downloaded for viewing offline. All video and audio files were also available from
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
,
iTunes U The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...
and the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
.


Project

MIT OpenCourseWare sits within MIT Open Learning at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...
.


History

The concept of MIT OpenCourseWare grew out of the MIT Council on Education Technology, which was charged by MIT provost Robert Brown in 1999 with determining how MIT should position itself in the
distance learning Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...
/e-learning environment. MIT OpenCourseWare was then initiated to provide a new model for the dissemination of knowledge and collaboration among scholars around the world, and contributes to the “shared intellectual commons” in academia, which fosters collaboration across MIT and among other scholars. The project was spearheaded by professors Dick K.P Yue, Shigeru Miyagawa,
Hal Abelson Harold Abelson (born April 26, 1947) is the Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a fellow of the Institute ...
and other MIT Faculty. The main challenge in implementing the MIT OCW initiative had not been faculty resistance, but rather, the logistical challenges presented by determining ownership and obtaining publication permission for the massive amount of
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
ed items that are embedded in the course materials of MIT's faculty, in addition to the time and technical effort required to convert the educational materials to an online format. Copyright in MIT OpenCourseWare material remains with MIT, members of its faculty, or its students. In September 2002, the MIT OpenCourseWare proof-of-concept pilot site opened to the public, offering 32 courses. In September 2003, MIT OpenCourseWare published its 500th course, including some courses with complete streaming video lectures. By September 2004, 900 MIT courses were available online. In 2005, MIT OpenCourseWare and other
open educational resources Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials intentionally created and licensed to be free for the end user to own, share, and in most cases, modify. The term "OER" describes publicly accessible materials and ...
projects formed the OpenCourseWare Consortium, which seeks to extend the reach and impact of open course materials, foster new open course materials and develop sustainable models for open course material publication. In 2007, MIT OpenCourseWare introduced a site called Highlights for High School that indexes resources on the MIT OCW applicable to advanced high school study in
biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...
,
chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...
,
calculus Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizati ...
and
physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...
in an effort to support US
STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
education at the
secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
level. In 2011, MIT OpenCourseWare introduced the first of fifteen OCW Scholar courses, which are designed specifically for the needs of independent learners. While still publications of course materials like the rest of the site content, these courses are more in-depth and the materials are presented in logical sequences that facilitate self-study. No interaction with other students is supported by the OCW site, but study groups on collaborating project OpenStudy are available for some OCW Scholar courses. In 2012
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and MIT launched edX, a massive open online course (MOOC) provider to deliver online learning opportunities to the public. Between 2013 and 2019, some MIT OCW courses were delivered by the European MooC platform
Eliademy Eliademy �lɪaˈdəmiwas a free online classroom that allowed educators and students to create, share and manage online courses with real-time discussions and task management. Eliademy was based on Moodle (support import in Moodle format), Boots ...
.


Technology

MIT OCW was originally served by a custom
content management system A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content ( content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...
based on Microsoft's Content Management Server, which was replaced in mid-2010 with a
Plone Plone is a free and open source content management system (CMS) built on top of the Zope application server. Plone is positioned as an enterprise CMS and is commonly used for intranets and as part of the web presence of large organizations. Hi ...
-based content management system. The publishing process is described by MIT as a "large-scale digital publishing infrastructure consists of planning tools, a content management system (CMS), and the MIT OpenCourseWare content distribution infrastructure". Video content for the courses was originally primarily in
RealMedia RealMedia is a proprietary multimedia container format created by RealNetworks with the filename extension . RealMedia is generally used in conjunction with RealVideo and RealAudio, while also being used for streaming content over the Internet. ...
format. In 2008, OCW transitioned to using
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
as the primary digital video streaming platform for the site, embedding YouTube video back into the OCW site. OCW video and audio files are also provided in full for offline downloads on iTunesU and the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
. In 2011, OCW introduced an iPhone App called LectureHall in partnership with Irynsoft.


Funding

, the annual cost of running MIT OCW was about $3.5 million. In 2011, "MIT's goal for the next decade asto increase our reach ten-fold" and to secure funding for this.


See also

*
Bookboon Bookboon Learning is a digital learning service provider for corporate learning & development, providing eBooks, audio learning, online courses & learning journeys with a primarily focus on personal development and soft skills. Bookboon was origi ...
* Connexions, by
Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...
*
Curriki Curriki is an online, free, open education service. Curriki is structured as a nonprofit organization to provide open educational resources primarily in support of K-12 education. Curricula and instructional materials are available at the Curriki ...
* Fathom.com *
Flat World Knowledge FlatWorld is a publisher of college-level textbooks and educational supplements for a worldwide audience founded in 2007 as Flat World Knowledge by Eric Frank and Jeff Shelstad. It was acquired at the end of 2016 by Alastair Adam and John Eielson ...
* Flexbook *
Free High School Science Texts The Free High School Science Texts (FHSST) organization is a South African non-profit project, which creates open textbooks on scientific subjects. Textbooks are edited to follow the government's syllabus, and published under a Creative Commons li ...
South Africa * National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), India * Open.Michigan * Open textbook *
Tufts OpenCourseWare The Tufts OpenCourseWare (OCW) project, was a web-based publication of educational material from a number of Tufts University courses, providing open sharing of free, searchable, high-quality course content to educators, students, and self-learner ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mit Opencourseware Creative Commons-licensed works American educational websites Massachusetts Institute of Technology OpenCourseWare Internet properties established in 2002 Articles containing video clips Digital humanities projects Open educational resources