A report titled Internet Opens Elite Colleges to All by Associated Press education writer Justin Pope describes the open courseware movement. This AP story appears in this link to the New York Times and was carried this weekend by numerous other print and online publications. The scope that open courseware has achieved is described in this paragraph from the story:
“MIT’s initiative is the largest, but the trend is spreading. More than 100 universities worldwide, including Johns Hopkins, Tufts and Notre Dame, have joined MIT in a consortium of schools promoting their own open courseware. You no longer need a Princeton ID to hear the prominent guests who speak regularly on campus, just an Internet connection. This month, Yale announced it would make material from seven popular courses available online, with 30 more to follow. . . .”
Justin Pope does an excellent job of highlighting the impact of open courseware on different kinds of learners: college students, teachers, online learners outside of the United States (with crucial implications in developing countries) and self-learners. The facts and implications described in this report demonstrate that what was begun at MIT as an Internet experiment has morphed into a fundamental movement within 21st century education.
