More on open courseware beyond MIT

Jason Schwartz, Schools share class info across Internet, Daily Pennsylvanian, March 4, 2005. Excerpt: 'For the last four years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been pioneering a system known as OpenCourseWare, which allows any Internet user to access materials -- including lecture notes, problem sets and quizzes -- from various university courses. Although six other American universities have followed in MIT's footsteps, Penn is not planning such a move....Penn "certainly [has] plenty of course sites available to the public," said Ira Winston, who is the information technology executive director for the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Design. Winston noted that the "fundamental difference" between schools with OCW and Penn revolves around copyright issues. Whereas all intellectual property posted on OCW sites must be cleared and paid for, Penn professors are forced to restrict public access to all online copyrighted material....Still, Penn has made other efforts to allow the public more access to its professors' research, as the recently created Scholarly Commons program allows Engineering faculty to post papers online. "The primary reason that MIT is doing [OCW] is that its leaders believe in the benefits of openly sharing educational materials and knowledge," MIT OCW Communications Manager Jon Paul Potts said....Potts added that in addition to being a "a great boost to MIT's image," OCW has brought other perks to the institution. For example, it has reduced the need for a class-shopping period because students can preview a course on OCW before registering for it. It has also been a "wonderful recruiting tool" for undergraduate and graduate students as well as young faculty eager to "get their work out there," Potts said. He cited a survey of the MIT freshman class in which 8 percent of students responded that OCW was a factor in their decision to attend MIT....Potts noted that in addition to publishing courses online, one of MIT's main goals is to spread OCW to other universities. He added that MIT would offer advice and share technology with any school wishing to embark on an OCW program.'