XplanaZine

The MIT OpenCourseWare program is, conceptually, the stuff of a Nobel Peace Prize. Scratch the surface, however, and a nagging “emperor’s new clothes” or “grifted” feeling starts sneaking in. In theory, the course content from 2,000 classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is made available free of charge to the whole world, in the spirit of shared intellectual pursuit and human development. The joyous hype erroneously presupposes that currently professors and universities are too greedy or concerned with intellectual property rights to share. This is not the case, although there are some moves toward stricter protection of intellectual property rights and an inability to provide free content without some sort of supporting revenue flow.

According to a September 2003 article at Wired.com, MIT provides, thorugh the OpenSourceWare project, “Every lecture, every handout, every quiz. All online. For free.”

All of this sounds good. It’s not a bad idea, however, to separate hype from reality, with the hope that the MIT program will continue to grow and expand. Further, one must recognize and respect the contribution of individuals who are part of the legions who already provide their course content and instructional materials over the Internet, free of charge. One begins to realize that it would be a good idea for those who are already providing course content, instructional materials, assessment tools, etc. to join an association or team so that they may receive recognition for their contribution.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the MIT initiative its ease of access and the way it establishes a best practices approach to organizing online course topics and categories. This is the key to successful dissemination of courses, ideas, and approaches. If one is relying on a search engine, it is all too likely that the individual course will be buried in information overload.

However, the MIT OpenCourseWare initiative has been the subject of fairly significant misstatements and misrepresentations, all of which threaten to undermine what is positive about “MIT’s mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. It is true to MIT’s values of excellence, innovation, and leadership.”

Courseware: Is it Software or Course Content? When I first read about the initiative, I went to the website, eager to download trial versions of software, which I understood to be the “courseware” in question, in the form of course management software. However, that was not possible. When one visits the website, it becomes clear that only course content is available, and not courseware (course management software). According to Wired, OpenCourseWare received more than 30 million hits from the top ten nations outside the U.S. alone. Each course has more or less the same structure: syllabus, lecture notes, timeline, reading list. Some courses include multimedia resources, instructional materials such as Powerpoint presentations, and audio files. Few could be described as full courses. Most courses are quite weak in mediated e-learning. Despite the hype, they do not actually include tests, assessments, or interactive labs. Most of the courses consist of a syllabus, a reading list, and a series of questions to be addressed in essays written in conjunction with the class. Needless to say, the site is in its nascent stages, and much more will be provided to users as time goes on.

Curriculum Issues. Articles such as the one in Wired and glowing testimonials on the website give the impression that the material contained on the website would be enough to provide a student with a well-rounded educational experience. This may be true in a few narrow areas. Although there is quite a bit of breadth in the course offerings, there is nothing that even vaguely resembles a degree plan or a recommended curriculum. This is actually quite a disservice to those international users who would like to use it to complement or supplement their local university courses. It would be very useful to see MIT’s course requirements for various degrees, whether or not the course content is included in the OpenCourseWare project. It could set the stage for useful and productive collaborations between universities and other education providers.

Scams Overseas. Prestigious universities are always targets overseas, and scam artists find it fairly simple to dupe innocent victims by pretending to represent a university, or even to be an official branch of it. It is quite difficult for a university to police the world and root out the scam artists. Unfortunately, the nature of the OpenCourseWare presentation and the way that it has been promoted makes it fairly tempting.

Unlauded Profs and Programs Already Share. Initiatives such as the California system’s MERLOT project have been making course content available for several years. As of November 2003, the California Virtual Campus offered an extensive catalogue with more than 4,650 courses. Granted, many of them are simply syllabi and links the university offering the course. Nevertheless, it is a fabulous resource. When it comes to sharing robust course content, it has to be acknowledged that subject matter experts and universities have been doing this for years. Two examples come to mind: Introduction to Petroleum Geology by Dr. James Forgotson at the University of Oklahoma , and Introduction to Seismic Exploration by Dr. John Castagna, also at the University of Oklahoma. Both leaders in their fields, these two professors (along with many others) have been willing to share their expertise with the world. Largely unappreciated and unnoticed, these professors and the thousands like them must be considered quite heroic.

Quality Control Issues. The OpenCourseWare initiative puts the quality of intellectual endeavor in the forefront. It also reinforces the value of intellectual study and inquiry, and implicitly asks individuals to take pride in the courses they present online. Instead of seeming substandard or an easy variant of an onsite (or hybrid) course, the online content (particularly the reading lists) is viewed as perhaps even more rigorous than some traditional courses. This is a huge contribution.

Creating a Standard Online Course Structure. With its neat, clear, and consistent arrangement, the OpenCourseWare catalogue and format is, de facto, establishing a uniform standard for course structure. It is very similar to that used in WebCT and Blackboard, but in this case, access to the content via the management platform is free. This constitutes a global “learn-by-doing” tutorial. It is exciting!

Extending the Tradition Established by K-12 Teachers. Innumerable sites provide course content, lesson plans, exercises, tests, ad infinitum to K-12 teachers. Projects such as OpenCourseWare and MERLOT are replicating the service, but without a framework for easy collaboration. If MIT were to extend and/or expand the OpenCourseWare project to facilitate collaborations and university and/or scholar partnering, we might see online education and research ascend to another level, while optimizing existing infrastructure and access.

Encouraging Virtual Libraries to Stay Free. Because MIT, MERLOT and other such projects promise free access to course content, there is a new wave of encouragement to keep libraries, information resources, and other e-products free to users. This is absolutely vital if the full potential of the Internet is to be reached, particularly in the way that individuals from various regions of the U.S. and the world begin to interact. If not, what we will see is an exacerbation of the “second generation digital divide” due to bandwidth-hogging applications and dynamic websites that are already beginning to restrict access and use.

The MIT OpenCourseWare, MERLOT, and other projects like it are good models for expanded online learning and collaboration. Although at this point in time they tend to promise more than they can legitimately deliver, this situation will change soon. The key is to find a way to participate in each paradigm micro-shift, and continue to anticipate evolving, unfolding needs – both at the learner and the education provider levels.