The Impact of Open Course
Origins
OpenCourseWare, or OCW, is a free and open digital publication of high quality college and university‐level educational materials. These materials are organized as courses, and often include course planning materials and evaluation tools as well as thematic content. OpenCourseWare are free and openly licensed, accessible to anyone, anytime via the internet. (OpenCourseWare Consortium)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology was a pioneer in distributing private education course offerings online for free without credits earned. The OCW movement only took off, however, with the launch of MIT OpenCourseWare at MIT in October 2002.
OpenCourseWare emerged from a cluster of strategic activities overseen by the
MIT Council on Educational Technology, a group whose charter is “to provide strategic guidance and oversight of MIT efforts to develop an infrastructure and initiatives for the application of technology to education.” (Abelson, 2007, p. 2).
MIT believed that OCW would allow students to become better prepared for classes so that they may be more engaged during a class. They further believed that OCW would provide a means for students to review previous course material, enhance the capabilities for faculty to use materials from courses they are not currently participating in, and it could work with faculty in using this to promote coherence across the curriculum. (Abelson, 2007).
MIT Open Course Ware
I selected to review the Inventions and Patents course at MIT Open Course. The syllabus is found on the navigation bar on the left of the screen. The instructor introduces himself via video, where he elaborates on what will be covered in his course. The online syllabus provides the course meeting times and description, and information about the instructor. The syllabus for this course was appropriate for this environment. Information such as grading, assignment due dates, etc. have no relevance since this course does not render grades. As an extension to the syllabus, the instructor of the first core course provided a separate page outlining the course pedagogy. According to Simonson, the syllabus is the overall structure for content, delivery, and evaluation of the course. (Simonson, et. al., 2012).
Pre-planning
This course appears to have been well-planned as it clearly was organized using the ADDIE Model. The lectures, resources, videos, and calendar items all address the amount of time and effort that the designer utilized when building each course. Site maps were possibly used to simulate navigation through the online environment. The course offerings are easy to locate, the navigation is consistent and resources are available to download. According to Developing Online Courses (multimedia program), when a designer has a clear map of how both the class and the course website will break down, its time to collect or create any of the assets that is needed for the course.
Course Activities
A calendar is available for each course which is used in various ways by the instructors. Some calendars list all of the course lectures sequentially, others list specific activities and timeframes by day, and still others list the topic and a session overview of the topic. All course readings are found on a separate webpage, which range from allowing you to download the entire book or individual chapters, to purchasing books online at Amazon. Lecture notes are downloadable and assignments include assigned readings, class discussion topics, written assignments, and extra credit. Study questions are also available for some courses. Each course provides its features, descriptions, and often the highlights of the course on the course homepage. Hosted videos are listed separately.
Conclusion
The advantage of offering courses previously taught F2F include prior knowledge of the learner and the educational outcome or experience of the learner. The courses offered initially were five or six years old which allowed the instructor to tweak assignments based on objectives met and learner engagement. OCW appears to be a great supplement to distance education. Distance education classes in the future can include as additional resources, specific course lectures, sessions, and resources found in OCW environments.
References:
Abelson, H., (2007). The Creation of OpenCourseWare at MIT. Retrieved April 4, 2013 from http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/37585/ocw-creation-preprint.pdf
Developing Online Courses (n.d). [Multimedia Program]. Walden University
What is OpenCourseWare. Retrieved April 4, 2013 from http://www.ocwconsortium.org/en/aboutus/whatisocw
MITOPENCOURSEWARE. http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-901-inventions-and-patents-fall-2005/index.htm
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston , MA
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