OpenCourseWare Programs Help You Study and Learn at Your Own Pace and While Not Imparting a Degree, Enable You to Get the Equivalent of a First Class College Education for Free.
OpenCourseware (OCW) was started by MIT and is a growing movement among some of the top colleges and universities around the world. You could call it a 'quiet revolution' in the way the Internet and top education institutions are coming together to make the finest educational materials available to anyone who has an Internet connection... and for top educators to be able to reach and influence the minds of many millions of students worldwide.
Many of these Open Courseware programs also allow these courses to be taken for credit upon approval and payment a participating college or university.
" Open educational content is a concept that will advance human knowledge, creativity, lifelong learning, and the social welfare of educators, students, and self-learners across the globe." and:
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 around the world.
Directories of Open CourseWares
OpenCourseWare Consortium "... a collaboration of more than 200 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware.
The Goals of the Consortium
Extend the reach and impact of opencourseware by encouraging the adoption and adaptation of open educational materials around the world.
Foster the development of additional opencourseware projects.
Ensure the long-term sustainability of opencourseware projects by identifying ways to improve effectiveness and reduce costs...."
OCW Finder ".... helps people find free online courses called OpenCourseWares (OCWs)...."
The goal of this website is to give you access to the growing number of OpenCourseWare programs available worldwide. Here is a small sampling of the many, many open courseware projects available. For a much larger listing of colleges and universities with Open Courseware programs and projects, please review the directories and the OpenCourseWare Consortium listed in the column to the left.
A FREE MIT Education
You Can Have Access to the Best Educational Materials ... for FREE!
MIT's Open Courseware "a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT's mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. It is true to MIT's values of excellence, innovation, and leadership."
MIT OCW:
Is a publication of MIT course materials
Does not require any registration
Is not a degree-granting or certificate-granting activity
Does not provide access to MIT faculty
"With the publication of 500 courses, MIT is delivering on the promise of OpenCourseWare that we made in 2001. We are thrilled that educators, students, and self-learners from all parts of the globe tell us that MIT OCW is having an impact on education and learning. We hope that in sharing MIT’s course materials, and our experience thus far with MIT OCW, we will inspire other institutions to openly share their course materials, creating a worldwide web of knowledge that will benefit mankind." - Charles M. Vest, President of MIT
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's OPENCOURSEWARE (OCW) project "....provides access to content of the School's most popular courses. As challenges to the world's health escalate daily, the School feels a moral imperative to provide equal and open access to information and knowledge about the obstacles to the public's health and their potential solutions...."
Notre Dame OpenCourseWare "... a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners throughout the world. We hope you find Notre Dame OCW valuable, whether you're a student looking for some extra help, a faculty member trying to prepare a new course, or just interested in learning more about a topic that interests you...." List of Courses
Open Learning Initiative (Carnegie Mellon) "... Open & Free Courses are for independent learners and include self-guiding materials and activities that are freely available for you to use! Plus, they are available all the time so you can learn at your own pace.
No instructors, no credits, no charge...."
UC Irvine OpenCourseWare
"... has a long history of social engagement. As a leading public research University, an important part of its mission is to showcase and disseminate the research and scholarship of the University to the public .... strives to meet the following goals:
To meet the University of California’s desire to play a significant role in the contribution to the social welfare of the state, the nation and the world
To showcase the University’s top instructional efforts and make those course materials free on a global scale to educators, students, and self-learners
To create educational assets that are discoverable, searchable, and modifiable under Creative Commons licenses..."
