An OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 200 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance education and empower people worldwide through OpenCourseWare. Below is a compiled list of recommended OCW sites students can utilize to learn new subject matter and to further their educative experiences.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology OpenCourseWare
url: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
free: The first of its kind, and the ultimate in OpenCourseWare, MIT’s OCW is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. MIT OCW is not an MIT education, does not grant degrees or certificates, does not provide access to MIT faculty, and may not reflect the entire content of each course. No registration is necessary. MIT OCW offers 1800 courses in over 30 different departments, including Architecture and Planning, Engineering, Health Sciences, Management, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts. Available online per course are course descriptions, syllabi/calendars, suggested and supplemental readings, assignment schedules, projects with initial review and final publications (*.PDF file format), and any other applicable resources and course materials. Courses are in the format of participating in a certain number of sessions per week, for a designated number of hours per session. Courses can be fully downloaded from the course’s website. MIT OCW also offers general supplemental resources contributed by MIT faculty (includes video, online resources, online textbooks), archived courses of those that are no longer available on the OCW site, an MIT curriculum guide by course department, which serves the purpose of laying out the requirements for completion of each program study, and a Highlights for High School section, which features MIT OCW materials that are most useful for high school students and teachers. The Highlights include video clips, lecture notes, practice problems, and exam questions for AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP Physics courses; “Knowledge in Action” courses, for students to learn how to “Build Stuff,” to help “Save the World” by developing sustainable solutions to challenging problems, and to “Write Better” by improving their writing skills through the use of the provided resources; “Hands on Learning” experience with labs, competitions, and demonstrations on video; intriguing courses developed by MIT students for high school students.
Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative
url: http://www.cmu.edu/oli/
free: A division of Carnegie Mellon University, the Open Learning Initiative (OLI) provides intro college level courses, including math, science, language, engineering subjects. These courses are freely available and easily accessible online courses which provide course materials that enact instruction for an entire course in an online format. Courses do not provide actual certification or verification, however, such arrangements can be made at a local institution. Registration is only required if you would like to keep track of your progress or if you are taking a course for credit.OLI courses use innovative online instructional components: cognitive tutors, virtual labs, group experiments, and simulations. Constructive, timely, and REAL feedback is available for students enrolled in courses, similar to that of individual tutoring sessions. Free summer workshops are also available, which allow students to explore five different courses: Chemistry, French, Logic and Proofs, Physics, and Statistics, while implementing the use of an interactive learning experience, with a mix of video and audio lessons, online tutors, virtual labs, and text materials.
not free: A limited number of $500 – $1000 fellowships are available. The purpose of these workshops includes instructing OLI courses and aiding the ongoing evaluation of effectiveness of the OLI Project. “Casebook Study” Fellowships involve administering tests, collecting and organizing test data, participating in conference calls regarding course material being used, and writing short case reports of the participant’s and participant’s student’s experience. “Learning Effectiveness Study” Fellowships involve administering tests, teaching, completing questionnaires about teaching experiences, and administering various surveys.
Tufts University OpenCourseWare
url: http://ocw.tufts.edu/
free: Like MIT’s OCW, Tufts University’s OCW site is completely free to all users. Courses do not grant credit, degrees, or certificates, do not require registration, and do not provide access to Tufts faculty. However, feedback is welcome and shared. Through Tufts’ OCW, students may enhance their coursework or pursue self study and the general public may glimpse the depth and breadth of what leading universities are offering and benefit from reading lists and lectures. Courses are offered by six different schools: the School of Medicine, the School of Dental Medicine, the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, the Fletcher School, the School of Arts and Sciences. Courses are mostly geared towards medical, veterinary, health, and nutritional sciences, and include, like MIT’s OCW site, course descriptions with highlights, syllabi/calendars, lecture notes, exams and quizzes, readings, image galleries, and supplemental resources. Site also includes Tufts Open Educational Resources, which provides access to Tufts University’s resources of educational content, tools, and infrastructure to educators, students, and self-learners.
Open Yale Courses
url: http://oyc.yale.edu/
free: The Open Yale Courses program, a division of Yale University, provides lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses to the public, free of charge, via the internet. Courses do not grant credit, degrees, or certification, and do not offer access to Yale faculty. Registration is not required. Feedback regarding general issues and issues pertinent to the courses is welcomed by taking the survey found on the website. The courses span the full range of liberal arts disciplines, including such subjects as Astronomy, Humanities, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, and Religious Studies. Each course includes a full set of class lectures produced in high-quality video accompanied by other course materials such as syllabi, suggested readings, and problem sets. The lectures are available as downloadable videos, and an audio-only version is also offered. In addition, searchable transcripts of each lecture are provided. Over the next three years, nearly 30 more courses and associated course materials will be added to Open Yale Courses. Recordings of course lectures will be ongoing during this period, and courses will be added to the site at regular intervals. These will be introductory undergraduate courses and will cover the full range of Arts and Humanities, Social Science, and Natural Science disciplines.
Gresham College OpenCourseWare
url: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/default.asp
free: Gresham College is an independently funded educational institution, with purpose to continue the free public lectures which have been given for over 400 years, and to reinterpret the ‘new learning’ of Sir Thomas Gresham’s day in contemporary terms. Streaming audio/video, downloadable audio/video, and archived lectures are available on various subjects including Squaring the Circle and Other Impossibilities, Perfectly Unpredictable: Why Forecasting Produces Useful Rubbish, and A Millennium of Mathematical Puzzles. Gresham College’s OCW site holds many interesting archived files, through which anyone can browse and explore.
University of Notre Dame OpenCourseWare
url: http://ocw.nd.edu/
free: OCW at the University of Notre Dame is a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners. Notre Dame OCW does not grant credits or degrees, and does not provide access to faculty. Registration is not necessary. ND OCW offers 30 courses in 16 different departments, including Africana, American, and Latino Studies, Architecture, History, Philosophy, and Theology. Courses include course description, syllabi/calendar, readings, lectures, major assignments.
Open University of Washington
url: http://onlinelearning.washington.edu/ol/
free: Through the “Special Offerings” section, students can visit free resource and learning sites, including a site for a free IT course, and a link to OpenUW, which offers free online mini-courses in several subjects (the American Civil War; Energy, Diet, and Weight; Greek Mythology; Gulliver’s Travels; Hamlet; HTML Basics; History of Jazz: New Orleans; the American Revolution; Shakespeare’s Comedies; Tolkien; World War II). Registration is required to access course. Texts are recommended and must be purchased; free online text is not available. OpenUW holds only very limited resources.
not free: Courses for credit, degrees (masters and doctorate programs), and certification are available in subjects including Business and Management, Communication, Engineering, Humanities, Information Management/Services, Language Literature and Writing, Math and Statistics, Natural and Health Sciences, Political Science and Economics, Psychology, Sociology, and Women’s Studies. Course-takers must register; registration and course fees apply.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health OpenCourseWare
url: http://ocw.jhsph.edu/
free: All open courses provided by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health are free, with no required registration. However, JHSPH OCW does not provide access to faculty, nor does it grant degrees or certificates. Lecture topics are categorized into: Adolescent Health, Aging, Behavior and Health, Biostatistics, Chronic Diseases, Environment, General Public Health, Genetics, Global Health, Health Policy, HIV/AIDS, Infectious Diseases, Injury Prevention, Maternal and Child Health, Mental Health, Nutrition, Popular Science, Presentations, Public Health Preparedness and Refugee Health. Each category contains its own subcategory, which is subsequently broken down into individual classes. Contains lecture notes (some video lectures) and a variety of other resources. This site is highly recommended for those interested in public health.
United Nations University OpenCourseWare
url: http://ocw.unu.edu/
free: United Nations University’s OCW program does not provide degrees or certifications, and registration is not necessary. This site offers courses relevant to the work of the United Nations. Classes are categorized into the following institutes: Software Technology, International Network on Water, Environment and Health, Maastricht Economic and Cocial Research and Training Centre on Innovation and Technology. Like traditional college courses, UNU OCW’s courses provide a similar structure of syllabi/calendars, modules, references, assignments, quizzes, and exams. Please note that not all courses will include homework assignments and test-taking.
University of California, Irvine OpenCourseWare
url: http://ocw.uci.edu/
free: Irvine’s OCW provides free courses, complete with syllabi, exams and assignments. Courses include: California Subject Examination for Teachers, Capital Markets, Fundamentals of Business Analysis, Fundamentals of Personal Financial Planning, Medical Product Quality Systems, Regulatory Requirements for Pharmaceutical Products, Spa Operations and Training and Human Resources Development. Like the other OCW programs, UC Irvine’s OCW does not provide degrees or certification of any kind, and does not require registration.
Utah State University OpenCourseWare
url: http://ocw.usu.edu/
free: Utah State OCW is free, and much like the programs at Irvine and Johns Hopkins, many classes are provided with syllabi, assignments and exams. Utah State’s OCW seems to offer more variety than its counterparts; its classes are as follows: Anthropology, Biological and Irrigation Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Economics, Education, Electrical and Computer Engineering, English, Family, Consumer and Human Development, History, Instructional Technology, Language, Philosophy and Speech Communication, Physics, Theatre Arts, University Extension, University Studies and Wildland Resources.
