As Deb Perelman’s blog summarized nicely, MIT just go a whole lot less exclusive: the core teaching materials, including syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, and exams from MIT’s 1,800 courses, are now online and free to the public. The reason MIT is doing so (which we’ve obviously talked about before, but is worth repeating again) is simply that MIT is committed to advancing education and discovery through knowledge open to everyone - a goal we should all be able to get behind. It is really worth having a look around the MIT site - or better, yet, download a course.
However, there is at least one issue that remains to be dealt with - while the courses are open, accessible and “free”, many of the readings the courses are built on aren’t. For example, if you are interested in the technology strategy course, you will find this reading list - mostly articles that you’ll have to find and pay for through some journal archive service, and some books that you can buy through Amazon. Many other courses have a very long list of expensive, required texts. In turn, while anyone can now sign up for the courses and perhaps study the lecture notes and some of the reading material, many prospective students (particularly those in developing nations) will find the core parts of the course are still out of their reach.
Of course, there is a benefit tied to the books as well - the partnership with Amazon allows for 10% of the sales price from books bought through the site to go towards MIT, in order to support the open access resource. Moreover, the opening up of university courses is just a start - they have a similar site operating now for high school students and teachers, many courses are being translated, in addition to a variety of other exciting elements of this amazing initiative.
MIT is moving in a great direction for many, many different reasons - and with other communities like Curriki doing similar things, access to cutting edge educational material and support might just move from being a privilege to a right. Any way you slice it, that would be a great outcome for everyone.
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Been listening to their courses, via podcast, for a while. It really helps me to respect them. Especially, at a time when most of established academia is tightening up and closing off access to others.
I guess exclusivity is not what makes one great?
Also, dont forget to check out MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence. Another place for amazing work to be done (first on tap: use web 2.0 to cure cancer).
Comment by Steven Mandzik - December 9, 2007 7:49 pm
[…] Via Wikinomics […]
Pingback by MIT est complètement ouvert et gratuit en ligne | Michel Leblanc, M.Sc. commerce électronique. Marketing Internet, consultant, conférencier et auteur - December 11, 2007 12:39 pm
[…] Wikinomics points to the MIT site where most of the teaching materials are now available online for free. That includes the lecture notes, the assignments and of course, the 1,800 courses. Related Posts Does our Digital Culture Transform our Intelligence?The Collab Links for 08/20/07The Illusion of Privacy […]
Pingback by Collab@work » Blog Archive » MIT 4 Free? - December 14, 2007 1:36 am
[…] knowledge, connecting society? Last year (aka 25 days ago) I wrote about MIT opening up all of the material from their 1,800 courses on the web, and they did it simply […]
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