OpenCourseWare Open for Business

MIT OpenCourseWare
a free, open, publication of MIT Course Materials.

This month the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) officially launches its Web-based electronic publishing initiative, MIT OpenCourseWare. MIT OCW is "a free, open, publication of MIT Course Materials" offered to the internet public. The materials include course syllabuses and assignments as well as access to videos of lectures. Last September the piolt version eased itself into public awareness with a limited number of courses, and this year offers several hundred more. The program has roadmapped a plan to get virtually all courses on the Web by 2007.

MIT OCW is free, as in beer. It is available to anyone with internet access. If you don't have an internet account there's always the local public library or internet cafe. September's issue of Wired features an article about how a young man in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam is using MIT OCW to take a course in software engineering for $600 (USD), while a "classmate" in Nashville, Tennessee uses it to supplement what he started learning in community college a year ago before he dropped out.

One thing the student does not get is an accredited degree. This is not Distance Learning and MIT is quick to point that out (see question #6):

MIT OCW is not a distance-learning initiative. Distance learning involves the active exchange of information between faculty and students, with the goal of obtaining some form of a credential. Increasingly, distance learning is also limited to those willing and able to pay for materials or course delivery. MIT OCW is not meant to replace degree-granting higher education or for-credit courses. Rather, the goal is to provide the content that supports an education.

There has been a lot of debate over what may be problematic with online education, and the players involved continue to examine closely any potential drawbacks. I'm not an educator so I cannot argue from that perspective, but some concerns I've heard about include the idea of promoting "camera star" professors (via the need to video conference lectures) over "camera shy" professors, and how this might alienate otherwise legitimate agendas. Also the idea that the online experience is not a true surrogate of the campus life experience. There are others issues, like copyright laws and the intellectual rights of teachers and professors. And then there is always the issue in education about who (what culture) propagates what information, and why.

In October of 2001, First Monday published an article by Kei Ishii that addresses some of these issues. It also makes a case for a more intelligent grasp at power:

Soft power is best explained by Joseph Nye and William Owens: "[Soft power] is the ability to achieve desired outcomes in international affairs through attraction rather than coercion. It works by convincing others to follow, or getting them to agree to, norms and institutions that produce the desired behavior" (Nye and Owens, 1996). One of the results for nation-states is that they "may not need to expend as many of its costly traditional or military resources". Thus, soft power also is about the attraction of U.S. democracy and free markets. Again, OpenCourseWare and Open Source provide the field for the participants to use the soft power, to create the norms and institutions necessary to learn, create, invent, innovate and last not least succeed economically.

For the most part the Academe has recognized the decentralized nature of the internet and how this may serve for a more equitable dissemination of education. MIT is not the only school looking into this, and the MIT OCW program isn't the first attempt of its kind. While it may not be the most comprehensive learning system yet, it is the most evolved program to date. It is a start. Looking ahead, the successes and failures of this program will serve as model to the future of Education.