The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 2001–2005
MIT put its courses online for anyone, anywhere, free.
MIT OpenCourseWare made the institution's lecture materials publicly available, spreading teaching content around the world.
MIT
the move
University courses are built once and then delivered to a limited set of enrolled students, leaving the structure and content of excellent teaching largely inaccessible elsewhere.
MIT OpenCourseWare traced its origins to 1999 and 2000 and launched in 2001, publishing its course materials openly and freely on the web.
The idea spread to other institutions and coalesced into the OpenCourseWare Consortium, making open educational resources a global movement.
why it works
- Releasing materials is cheap relative to the reach it buys
- Open licensing lets the content be reused and remixed without permission
- Publishing publicly raises the institution's standing as a source of knowledge
- The credential, not the content, remains the scarce thing the institution sells
what transfers
When you hold the knowledge and the value is in the surrounding experience, give away the raw material to reach people your physical campus never will.
what came after
MIT OpenCourseWare became the model for open educational resources and spawned a consortium of institutions. It influenced later free-course platforms and shaped the move toward open access in higher education, though the question of whether free content erodes or reinforces paid instruction has been debated.
references
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