November 5, 2003
EDUCAUSE Annual Conference
A New Model for Open Sharing
Anne H. Margulies
“… to enlarge the
boundaries of
knowledge by
undertaking voyages
of discovery.”
President Thomas Jefferson requesting
funding for the Corps of Discovery in a
Jan. 18, 1803, letter to the Congress
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Agenda
I.
Vision
II.
Implementation
III. Impact
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Vision
4
Vision
Institutional Decision-Making
• Fall 1999 — Faculty committee appointed
• Fall 2000 — OCW concept recommended to MIT President Charles M. Vest
• April 2001 — MIT 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
MIT OCW success rests on four pillars:
• Responsive, professional organization
Communications
Communications
Infrastructure
TechInfrastructure
Tech
& Processes
Policies
& Process
Policies
Organization
Organization
OCW
Planning&& Evaluation
Evaluation
Planning
• Sensible policies and efficient processes
• Reliable, scalable technology infrastructure
• Communication with MIT community, external
audiences
A foundation of continuous planning,
evaluation, and feedback.
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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
Build
Publish
Support
• Transcribe,
convert
materials
• Identify IP
• Input content
• Add metadata
•
•
•
•
• Edit/add
• Respond to
inquiries
• Troubleshoot
• Design layout
• Scrub content
• Clear IP
• Initial QA
Test site
Final QA
Faculty signoff
Stage for
publish
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
What It Took To Make It Happen
• Technology
– Implemented Microsoft CMS 2002 with workflow, metadata, and reports
– Implemented Apache, Tomcat, Lucene Search Engine, Perl Publishing
engine, and Akamai for content delivery
– Implemented FileMaker for pipeline management, Netraker for external
user surveys, Akamai Sitewise for site statistics
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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
Monthly
Traffic–- Launch
Launch 2002
to to
October
20032003
OCWOCW
Monthly
Traffic
2002
October
9,000,000
8,000,000
7,000,000
5,000,000
Page
PageViews
Views
4,000,000
3,000,000
2,000,000
1,000,000
t.)
O
ct
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s
20
03
Au
g
20
03
Ju
ne
20
03
Ap
ril
20
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Fe
b
20
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ec
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20
02
0
La
un
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Pages
6,000,000
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Impact
Geographic Data
NATION
# OF HITS
1. Canada
6,495,090
Top 15 User Countries Outside
the United States *
2. United Kingdom
5,466,263
3. Germany
4,769,433
*Web hits as of Sept. 30, 2003
4. Brazil
3,929,334
5. Japan
3,870,805
6. South Korea
3,824,790
7. India
3,640,055
8. France
3,361,879
9. Hong Kong
2,960,400
10. China
2,193,580
11. Taiwan
2,143,839
12. Australia
2,074,719
13. Spain
1,825,894
14. Italy
1,816,695
15. Singapore
1,511,503
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Impact
User Feedback Data
• 9,500 emails to ocw@mit.edu
– Majority (60+ percent) are grateful or congratulatory
– Other inquiries
• How to register
• Technical questions
• Inquiries from other educators
• Vendors
– Negative responses (less than 3 percent)
• 17,000 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 using
the format, some using the idea
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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
• Host an annual conference, workshops, and meetings
• Provide advice as needed and able
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“I trust that the discoveries
we have made will not
remain long unimproved…
will promote the cause of
liberty and the honour of
America… and will relieve
distressed humanity.”
Meriwether Lewis in a speech at
Charlottesville, Va., on Nov. 15, 1806
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Thank You!
• Implementing “OpenCourseWare” on your Campus
Discussion
Wednesday, November 5, 2003
1 to 2 p.m.
Anaheim Convention Center, Room 208A
• MIT OpenCourseWare Poster Session
Teaching and Learning Track
Thursday, November 6, 2003
4:55 p.m. to 6:10 p.m.
Exhibit Hall B, Table 29
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