January 14, 2004
EDUCAUSE Mid-Atlantic Conference
A New Model for Open Sharing
Jon Paul Potts
Agenda
I.
Vision
II. Implementation
III. Impact
Copyright Jon Paul Potts and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003. This work
is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be
shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement
appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by
permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written
permission from the author.
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Vision
Institutional Decision-Making
• Fall 1999 — Faculty committee appointed
• Fall 2000 — OCW concept recommended to MIT President Charles
M. Vest
• April 2001 — OCW announced in The New York Times
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Vision
Institutional Decision-Making
“OpenCourseWare looks counter-intuitive
in a market-driven world. But it really is
consistent with what I believe is the best
about MIT. It is innovative. It expresses
our belief in the way education can be
advanced – by constantly widening
access to information and by inspiring
others to participate.”
– Charles M. Vest,
President of MIT
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Vision
Vision to Reality
• June 2001 — Funding partnership with the William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
• September 2002 — MIT OCW Pilot site opened to the public
– 50 courses from 23 academic disciplines
• September 2003 — OCW officially launched
– 500 courses from all five MIT schools and 33 academic
disciplines
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Vision
What Is MIT OCW?
MIT OpenCourseWare IS NOT: • An MIT education
• Intended to represent or replace the
actual interactive classroom
environment
• A distance education initiative
MIT OpenCourseWare IS: • A Web-based publication of virtually
all MIT course content
• Open and available to the world
• A permanent MIT activity
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Vision
Why Is MIT Doing This?
• Furthers MIT’s fundamental mission
• Embraces faculty values
– Teaching
– Contributing to their discipline
• Counters the privatization of knowledge and champions the
movement toward greater openness
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Vision
Dual Mission
• Provide free access to MIT course materials for educators and
learners
• Create a model other universities may use to publish their own
course materials
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Vision
Publication Timeline
Phase I:
Pilot
2002-03
Phase II:
Expansion
2004-07
• Publish
courses from
five schools,
33 disciplines
9/02
Proof-ofConcept Pilot
50 courses
• Publish hundreds of courses
• Offer complete curriculum tracks
• Work with like-minded institutions on “opencoursewares”
9/03
Launch
500
courses
Phase III:
Steady State
2008• Publish 2,000
courses
• Foster
consortium
9/07
Steady State
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Implementation
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Implementation
Scaling Up to 500 Courses
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Implementation
Publication Process
Managing a Course Through the OCW Process
Recruit
faculty
and
courses
Plan
• Transcribe,
convert
materials
• Identify IP
• Design layout
Publish
Build
• Input content
•
•
•
•
Add metadata
Scrub content
Clear IP
Initial QA
•
•
•
•
Test site
Final QA
Faculty signoff
Stage for
publish
Support
• Edit/add
• Respond to
inquiries
• Troubleshoot
OCW =
Snapshot of
Completed
Course
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Implementation
Technology
MIT Facilities
OCW Publishing
Environment
Origin Server
Search, Feedback
Content Distribution Network (Akamai)
Thousands of servers around the world
deliver MIT OCW course materials
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Implementation
Planning and Evaluation
PROGRAM
Access
Use
Web analytics


Online intercept surveys


Supplemental surveys



Interviews



Site feedback analysis



PROCESS
Efficiency
Impact
Effectiveness
Financial reports

Level of effort tracking database


IP operations tracking database



Content audit
Faculty survey


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Impact
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Impact
Data Over Time
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Impact
Geographic Data
Top 15 User Countries
Outside the United States *
* Web hits as of
December 31, 2003
Geographic Region
# of Hits
1 China
13,048,000
2 Canada
10,651,000
3 United Kingdom
7,965,000
4 Germany
6,774,000
5 Brazil
5,834,000
6 India
6,448,000
7 Japan
5,445,000
8 France
5,224,000
9 South Korea
5,119,000
10 Spain
4,231,000
11 Taiwan
3,847,000
12 Italy
3,702,000
13 Australia
3,074,000
14 Singapore
2,351,000
15 Greece
2,216,000
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Impact
Data Over Time
Site Traffic
Page
Views
Site Visits
October
2003
November December
2003
2003
Total
Since
10/1/03
Average
Per Day
7,890,000
3,850,000
2,681,000
14,420,000
157,000
484,000
235,000
288,000
1,007,000
11,000
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Impact
Evaluation Data
From November 6 to 19, 2003, we intercepted 21,500 site
visitors and 1,220 responded
• 92% expressed satisfaction with the quality of the course materials
• 95% said they would return to the OCW Web site for future use
• 99% said OCW will have an “extremely positive” or “moderately
positive” impact on education around the globe (83% “extremely
positive”)
• Based on survey data, approximately 94,000 faculty from outside of
MIT visited OCW during two-week period
• 18,500 subscribers to monthly email newsletter
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Impact
Translations
• 24 courses in Spanish
and Portuguese site
through Universia.net
partnership
• Individual courses in 10
languages
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Impact
Benefits for MIT Faculty
• Enables faculty to contribute to their discipline
– Providing a common repository of educational materials
– Making their materials visible to colleagues
• Leads to collaboration
– Extending relationships between MIT faculty, students and the
world
– Stimulating interdisciplinary teaching and research
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Impact
Benefits for MIT Faculty
MIT Reaction: Faculty
Musical composition by Jonathan Foust, from “A Touch of Grace”
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Impact
Benefits for Educators
• Facilitates curriculum development
– Establish or revise course offerings
• Enables pedagogical development
– Develop or enhance methods for teaching a particular course
– Establish or revise course syllabi and calendars
• Contributes to course content development
– Integrate new materials into an existing course
– Add elements (e.g. simulations, problem sets, exams)
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Impact
Benefits for Educators
World Reaction: Educators
Musical composition by Jonathan Foust, from “A Touch of Grace”
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Impact
Benefits for Learners
• Offers reference material and learning activities
– Explore new areas and gaining new insights
– Stay current in a particular area of interest
– Review and update previous educational experiences
– Utilize reading lists, resource lists as research tool
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Impact
Benefits for Learners
World Reaction: Self-learners
Musical composition by Jonathan Foust, from “A Touch of Grace”
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Impact
Emerging “OpenCourseWares”
• Other OCWs are beginning to
appear
• Some using the materials, some
copying the format, some
capitalizing on the idea
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Impact
Recognition
January 29, 2003
The Kyoto (Japan)
Digital Archives
Project recognizes
MIT OCW for:
• Vision
• Content
October 21, 2003
Massachusetts
Interactive Media
Council honors
MIT OCW for:
• Design
• User Experience
October 15, 2003
Sapient receives
“Microsoft Internet
Business Solution
Of the Year” award
for:
• MIT OCW
Technology
CERTIFIED
………………………
Business Solutions
Partner
November 10, 2003
MIT OCW / Sapient
partnership
recognized with
“InfoWorld 100”
Award for:
• MIT OCW
Technology
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Impact
What Does It Mean?
• Continues to be tremendous excitement
• The vision is achievable
• The impact of MIT OCW will be significant
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Impact
Extending OCW Beyond MIT
• Share evaluation findings
• Develop and implement outreach “How to” Web site to assist other
institutions, released in March
• Host an annual conference, workshops, and meetings
• Provide advice as needed and able
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Thank You
Visit us online at
http://ocw.mit.edu
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