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Hi everyone, Re. below, if you haven't already seen this post from Canarie's listserve news, I thought it might be of interest to some of you. It is also interesting to note the ranking below re. open courseware nations outside the U.S.. Cheers, Leo --------- >Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 05:46:41 -0400 (EDT) >From: [log in to unmask] >Subject: [news] Initial results of MIT's Open-Course Project >Sender: [log in to unmask] > >For more information on this item please visit the CANARIE CA*net 4 Optical >Internet program web site at http://www.canarie.ca/canet4/library/list.html >------------------------------------------- > >[Excerpts from Wired Magazine article - BSA] > >http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/mit.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set= > >MIT Everyware > > >Every lecture, every handout, every quiz. All online. For free. Meet >the global geeks getting an MIT education, open source-style. > >When MIT announced to the world in April 2001 that it would be >posting the content of some 2,000 classes on the Web, it hoped the >program - dubbed OpenCourseWare - would spur a worldwide movement >among educators to share knowledge and improve teaching methods. No >institution of higher learning had ever proposed anything as >revolutionary, or as daunting. MIT would make everything, from video >lectures and class notes to tests and course outlines, available to >any joker with a browser. The academic world was shocked by MIT's >audacity - and skeptical of the experiment. At a time when most >enterprises were racing to profit from the Internet and universities >were peddling every conceivable variant of distance learning, here >was the pinnacle of technology and science education ready to give >it away. Not the degrees, which now cost about $41,000 a year, but >the content. No registration required. > >And MIT will learn a few things, too, just as it did during >OpenCourseWare's first year. One lesson of the beta test revolved >around access, which in some parts of the world is costly and slow. >A second issue: lack of assistance to Web-based students. Even the >most brilliant university course can falter without the kind of >intensive teaching support provided at a school like MIT. Then there >are the nagging intellectual property headaches. How, for example, >do you police Third World scam artists from hawking MIT degrees as >if they were Calvin Klein knockoffs? > >OpenCourseWare's pilot run was wildly successful, drawing visitors >from 210 countries and territories. In addition to students, the >material appeals to countless educators at other universities. >Zhivko Nedev, a computer science professor at Wilfred Laurier >University in Waterloo, Ontario, turns to 6.170 material to help him >prepare lectures for his programming course. "It is the best thing I >have ever seen in computer science," he says. Ludmila Matiash, at >the Kyiv Mohyla Business School in Ukraine, draws on OpenCourseWare >to design educational and training programs. Kathy Mann, manager of >the biology lab at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, >Nevada, uses Biology 7.012: Introduction to Biology to teach >students how to create lab reports and record information from >science experiments. "It's really well done," she says. "Why >reinvent the wheel?" The Fulbright Economic Teaching Program at the >University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City makes its own content >available onl! >ine to any interested learners - and indicates on its site that it >is taking a cue from OpenCourseWare. "Part of our stated mission is >to be more than just a project at MIT," says Margulies, "to evolve >into a movement, to help other universities develop a model." > >All this success has bred a few problems. For starters: >profiteering. I show Margulies an email from Thailand. "A group of >us here are considering opening a University devoted solely to >'e-learning courses from MIT!'" writes the sender, who says he hopes >to offer "Bachelor of Science degrees in MIT Studies." > >MIT dishes out its content via more than 200 servers in Akamai's >global network. This takes the burden off the university's >infrastructure and eases bottlenecks, but the big remaining obstacle >is the last mile into people's homes. > >Top 10 OpenCourseWare Nations* >Rank Nation Hits >1. Canada 3,886,197 >2. Germany 3,576,071 >3. Brazil 3,170,362 >4. South Korea 3,254,259 >5. France 3,012,102 >6. Japan 3,095,913 >7. United Kingdom 3,099,713 >8. Chinaž 2,563,446 >9. India 2,512,267 >10. Australia 1,372,052 >* Outside the U.S. > žIncludes nearly 600,000 hits from mainland China, where the government denied access to OpenCourseWare until February 2003, and nearly 2 million hits from Hong Kong. -- ____________________________________ Leo J. Deveau, M.Ed, MLIS. Researcher, Nova Scotia Round Table for Post-Secondary Disability Service Providers, N.S. Department of Education, NSCC Halifax Campus 1825 Bell Rd., Rm. 126 Halifax, Nova Scotia. B3H-2Z4 Cell: 902-452-3517 Halifax office: 902-424-0073 Home office: 902-542-3908 Fax: 902-424-0027 [log in to unmask]