Open courseware initiatives - after 10 years

Abstract

In this paper we overview the state-of-the-art in open courseware initiatives worldwide. First, the MIT OpenCourseWare project is surveyed, as it has been the real starting point of the OCW movement. Generally, open courseware refers to a free and open digital publication of high quality university-level educational materials that are organized as courses, and include course planning materials, evaluation tools, and thematic content, under a Creative Commons license. OCW is free and openly licensed, accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime via the Internet. The OCW initiative started in 2002, and since then many more projects that offer open access to courseware have been initiated: Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative, Harvard Medical School's MyCourses, Webcast. Berkeley, Rice University's Connexions, OpenCourseWare Consortium, Open Education Resources Commons, and The Saylor Foundation's Free Education Initiative, along with open courseware projects worldwide. All these endeavors boost and contribute to the emerging open educational models.