OpenCourseWare
Encyclopedia
OpenCourseWare, or OCW, is a term applied to course materials created by universities and shared freely with the world via the internet. The movement started in 1999 when the University of Tübingen in Germany published videos of lectures online in the context of its timms initiative. The OCW movement only took off, however, with the launch of MIT OpenCourseWare
at MIT in October 2002. MIT's reasoning behind OCW was to "enhance human learning worldwide by the availability of a web of knowledge." MIT also believes that it would allow students to become better prepared for classes so that they may be more engaged during the class. Since then, a number of universities have created OCW projects modeled after MIT's, some of which have been funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
According to the website of the OCW Consortium, an OCW project:
, began movement in China in September, 2003, when MIT and the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF) joined together with the Beijing Jiaotong University
to organize an OpenCourseWare conference in Beijing. As a result of this conference, 12 universities petitioned the government to institute a program of OpenCourseWare in China. This group included both some of the most prestigious universities in China, as well as the Central Radio and Television University, which is China’s central open university, covering more than 2 million students.
As a result of this petition, the Chinese government instituted the China Quality OpenCourseWare (精品课程) program, overseen by the Ministry of Education
. This program accepts applications for university lectureres that wish to put their courses online, and gives grants of between $10-15,000 CAD per course that is put online, and made available free of charge to the general public (ibid.). The most prestigious award is for the “national level CQOCW”, then there is “provincial level” and “school level”. In 2008, 1799 courses at the national level, over 5000 courses at the provincial level, and over 10,000 courses at the university level had been made available online. These typically include syllabus, course notes, overheads, assignments, and in many cases audio or video of the entire lectures. The scale of this project has also spurred a large research activity, and over 3,000 journal articles have been written in Chinese about the topic of OpenCourseWare.
At the same time, the China Open Resources for Education
was set up as an NGO, with Fun-Den Wang (the head of IETF) as chairman, and the twelve universities as members. This organization organized volunteers to translate MIT OpenCourseWare into Chinese and to promote the idea of OpenCourseWare in China. At the end of 2007, 245 courses had been translated into Chinese, and these were used by 200 professors in courses involving a total of 8,000 students.
There have also been produced 148 comparative studies comparing MIT curriculum with Chinese curriculum using the MIT OpenCourseWare material. CORE's offices are hosted within the China Central Radio and Television University, and they receive partial funding from the IETF and from the Hewlett foundation
. They also host annual conferences on open education, and the 2008 conference was co-located with the international OpenCourseWare Consortium conference, which brought a large amount of foreign participants.
, was introduced and adopted in Japan
.
In 2002, researchers from the National Institute of Multimedia Education (NIME) and Tokyo Institute of Technology
(Tokyo Tech) studied the MIT OpenCourseWare, leading them to develop an OCW pilot plan with 50 courses at Tokyo Institute of Technology in September. Later, in July 2004, MIT gave a lecture about MIT OpenCourseWare at Tokyo Tech that prompted the first meeting of the Japan OCW Alliance. The meeting was held with four Japanese universities that had mainly been recruited through the efforts of MIT professor Miyagawa, and his personal contacts. In one case, the connection was the former president of the University of Tokyo
being an acquintance of Charles Vest, the former president of MIT.
In 2006 the OCW International Conference was held at Kyoto University
wherein the Japanese OCW Association was reorganized into the Japan OCW Consortium. At that time, Japan OCW Consortium had over 600 courses; currently they have 18 university members, including the United Nations University
(JOCW, n.d.). On Japanese university campuses there are few experts in content production, which makes it difficult to get support locally, and many of the universities have had to out-source their production of OCW. In example, the University of Tokyo has had to mainly employ students to create OCW.
The motivation for joining the OCW movement seems to be to create positive change among Japanese universities, including modernizing presentation style among lecturers, as well as sharing learning material. Japanese researchers have been particularly interested in the technical aspects of OCW, for example in creating semantic search engines. There is currently a growing interest for Open Educational Resources (OER) among Japanese universities, and more universities are expected to join the consortium.
“In order to become an integral institution that contributes to OER, the JOCW Consortium needs to forge solidarity among the member universities and build a rational for OER on its own, different from that of MIT, which would support the international deployment of Japanese universities and also Japanese style e-Learning.”
MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to put all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, partly free and openly available to anyone, anywhere. MIT OpenCourseWare is a large-scale, web-based publication of...
at MIT in October 2002. MIT's reasoning behind OCW was to "enhance human learning worldwide by the availability of a web of knowledge." MIT also believes that it would allow students to become better prepared for classes so that they may be more engaged during the class. Since then, a number of universities have created OCW projects modeled after MIT's, some of which have been funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is a private foundation, established by Hewlett-Packard cofounder William Reddington Hewlett and his wife Flora Lamson Hewlett in 1967. The Hewlett Foundation awards grants to support educational and cultural institutions and to advance certain social and...
According to the website of the OCW Consortium, an OCW project:
- 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, such as a Creative CommonsCreative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
license. - does not typically provide certification or access to faculty.
In China
OpenCourseWare originally initiated by MIT and the Hewlett FoundationWilliam and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is a private foundation, established by Hewlett-Packard cofounder William Reddington Hewlett and his wife Flora Lamson Hewlett in 1967. The Hewlett Foundation awards grants to support educational and cultural institutions and to advance certain social and...
, began movement in China in September, 2003, when MIT and the Internet Engineering Task Force
Internet Engineering Task Force
The Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite...
(IETF) joined together with the Beijing Jiaotong University
Beijing Jiaotong University
Beijing Jiaotong university is one of the oldest universities in Mainland China.-History:It is a component of Jiaotong University....
to organize an OpenCourseWare conference in Beijing. As a result of this conference, 12 universities petitioned the government to institute a program of OpenCourseWare in China. This group included both some of the most prestigious universities in China, as well as the Central Radio and Television University, which is China’s central open university, covering more than 2 million students.
As a result of this petition, the Chinese government instituted the China Quality OpenCourseWare (精品课程) program, overseen by the Ministry of Education
Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China
The Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China , formerly Ministry of Education, Central People's Government from 1949 to 1954, State Education Commission from 1985 to 1998, is headquartered in Beijing. It is the agency of the State Council which regulates all aspects of the...
. This program accepts applications for university lectureres that wish to put their courses online, and gives grants of between $10-15,000 CAD per course that is put online, and made available free of charge to the general public (ibid.). The most prestigious award is for the “national level CQOCW”, then there is “provincial level” and “school level”. In 2008, 1799 courses at the national level, over 5000 courses at the provincial level, and over 10,000 courses at the university level had been made available online. These typically include syllabus, course notes, overheads, assignments, and in many cases audio or video of the entire lectures. The scale of this project has also spurred a large research activity, and over 3,000 journal articles have been written in Chinese about the topic of OpenCourseWare.
At the same time, the China Open Resources for Education
China Open Resources for Education
The China Open Resources for Education is a non-profit organization. Its mission is to promote closer interaction and open sharing of educational resources between Chinese and international universities, which CORE envisions as the future of world education.CORE aims to provide Chinese...
was set up as an NGO, with Fun-Den Wang (the head of IETF) as chairman, and the twelve universities as members. This organization organized volunteers to translate MIT OpenCourseWare into Chinese and to promote the idea of OpenCourseWare in China. At the end of 2007, 245 courses had been translated into Chinese, and these were used by 200 professors in courses involving a total of 8,000 students.
There have also been produced 148 comparative studies comparing MIT curriculum with Chinese curriculum using the MIT OpenCourseWare material. CORE's offices are hosted within the China Central Radio and Television University, and they receive partial funding from the IETF and from the Hewlett foundation
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is a private foundation, established by Hewlett-Packard cofounder William Reddington Hewlett and his wife Flora Lamson Hewlett in 1967. The Hewlett Foundation awards grants to support educational and cultural institutions and to advance certain social and...
. They also host annual conferences on open education, and the 2008 conference was co-located with the international OpenCourseWare Consortium conference, which brought a large amount of foreign participants.
In Japan
OpenCourseWare originally initiated by MIT and the Hewlett FoundationWilliam and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is a private foundation, established by Hewlett-Packard cofounder William Reddington Hewlett and his wife Flora Lamson Hewlett in 1967. The Hewlett Foundation awards grants to support educational and cultural institutions and to advance certain social and...
, was introduced and adopted in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
In 2002, researchers from the National Institute of Multimedia Education (NIME) and Tokyo Institute of Technology
Tokyo Institute of Technology
The Tokyo Institute of Technology is a public research university located in Greater Tokyo Area, Japan. Tokyo Tech is the largest institution for higher education in Japan dedicated to science and technology. Tokyo Tech enrolled 4,850 undergaraduates and 5006 graduate students for 2009-2010...
(Tokyo Tech) studied the MIT OpenCourseWare, leading them to develop an OCW pilot plan with 50 courses at Tokyo Institute of Technology in September. Later, in July 2004, MIT gave a lecture about MIT OpenCourseWare at Tokyo Tech that prompted the first meeting of the Japan OCW Alliance. The meeting was held with four Japanese universities that had mainly been recruited through the efforts of MIT professor Miyagawa, and his personal contacts. In one case, the connection was the former president of the University of Tokyo
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...
being an acquintance of Charles Vest, the former president of MIT.
In 2006 the OCW International Conference was held at Kyoto University
Kyoto University
, or is a national university located in Kyoto, Japan. It is the second oldest Japanese university, and formerly one of Japan's Imperial Universities.- History :...
wherein the Japanese OCW Association was reorganized into the Japan OCW Consortium. At that time, Japan OCW Consortium had over 600 courses; currently they have 18 university members, including the United Nations University
United Nations University
The United Nations University is an academic arm of the United Nations established in 1973, which serves purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. The UNU undertakes research into the pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare that are the concern of...
(JOCW, n.d.). On Japanese university campuses there are few experts in content production, which makes it difficult to get support locally, and many of the universities have had to out-source their production of OCW. In example, the University of Tokyo has had to mainly employ students to create OCW.
The motivation for joining the OCW movement seems to be to create positive change among Japanese universities, including modernizing presentation style among lecturers, as well as sharing learning material. Japanese researchers have been particularly interested in the technical aspects of OCW, for example in creating semantic search engines. There is currently a growing interest for Open Educational Resources (OER) among Japanese universities, and more universities are expected to join the consortium.
“In order to become an integral institution that contributes to OER, the JOCW Consortium needs to forge solidarity among the member universities and build a rational for OER on its own, different from that of MIT, which would support the international deployment of Japanese universities and also Japanese style e-Learning.”
See also
- Berkeley WebcastBerkeley WebcastBerkeley Webcast is an initiative of the University of California, Berkeley developed by the Berkeley Multimedia Research Center to share video and audio of full undergraduate courses and on-campus events. Initial research at BMRC was aided by grants from the National Science Foundation...
- MIT OpenCourseWareMIT OpenCourseWareMIT OpenCourseWare is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to put all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, partly free and openly available to anyone, anywhere. MIT OpenCourseWare is a large-scale, web-based publication of...
- Notre Dame OpenCourseWareNotre Dame OpenCourseWareNotre Dame OpenCourseWare is an initiative by the University of Notre Dame to make materials from various courses freely available on the web. Launched September 30, 2006, the site currently hosts materials from 45 courses in 7 subjects...
- Open.MichiganOpen.MichiganOpen.Michigan is a collection of open initiatives and projects at the University of Michigan . Open.Michigan supports the open access and use of U-M resources for teaching, learning, and research. Open.Michigan promotes open content licensing and supports the reuse, redistribution, and remixing of...
- Tufts OpenCourseWareTufts OpenCourseWareThe Tufts OpenCourseWare project, is 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-learners throughout the global community...
- Open educational resourcesOpen educational resourcesOpen educational resources are digital materials that can be re-used for teaching, learning, research and more, made available for free through open licenses, which allow uses of the materials that would not be easily permitted under copyright alone...
- Khan academyKhan AcademyThe Khan Academy is a not-for-profit educational organization, created in 2006 by Bangladeshi American educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT. With the stated mission of "providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere", the website supplies a free online collection of more than 2,700 micro...
- Education in JapanEducation in JapanIn Japan, education is compulsory at the elementary and lower secondary levels. Approximately 98% of all students progress to the upper secondary level, which is voluntary . Most students attend public schools through the lower secondary level, but private education is popular at the upper...
- Open Yale CoursesOpen Yale CoursesOpen Yale Courses is a project of Yale University to share full video and course materials from its undergraduate courses.Open Yale Courses provides free access to a selection of introductory courses....
- China Open Resources for EducationChina Open Resources for EducationThe China Open Resources for Education is a non-profit organization. Its mission is to promote closer interaction and open sharing of educational resources between Chinese and international universities, which CORE envisions as the future of world education.CORE aims to provide Chinese...
- National Programme on Technology Enhanced LearningNPTELThe National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning is a Government of India sponsored collaborative educational programme. By developing curriculum-based video and web courses the programme aims to enhance the quality of engineering education in India...