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The Great Giveaway

In Nigeria, Kunle Adejumo, an engineering student at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, is using print and video materials downloaded from an American university to prepare for an exam in metallurgical engineering.

Thousands of miles away in France, Brigitte Bouissou, a teacher at an elementary school, is logging on to an internet video lecture being conducted by a professor of mathematics to prepare for the next day's lessons.

In New York, a sixth-grader is in contact with a fourth-grader in Kenya - they are discussing the migration of wildebeest, both using handheld computers.

Here in England, James Heywood, a 29-year-old web researcher, is solving his friend's computer security problems with knowledge gained from an online internet course run by a British university.

Welcome to the world of Open Courseware (OCW), where some of the best universities in the world are offering teaching, learning and research resources to education-hungry people across the globe.

And the fees? Zero.

The OCW phenomenon began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1999 by a faculty committee charged with looking at how the internet would change education and the role MIT would play.

The committee considered how it might combine the institution's expertise and reputation with the internet's strength to deliver inexpensive content to a wide audience.

"That's when it occurred to us, why not just give our classroom's materials away?" says Anne Margulies, MIT's executive director of the OCW programme. "Such a giveaway would potentially provide educators around the world with tools they could use for their own instruction. Students at other institutions too will benefit from access to additional resources as might professionals in related fields."

And it was a good move. The concept of distance learning is not new and with the growth in use of the internet, many of America's leading universities originally planned to make huge profit from the sale of their knowledge. By 2001, this idea had foundered in the face of the dotcom bust. Lecturers realised that they were not going to become rich on their royalties, and that their books and articles would probably be out of print within a decade.

In late 2001, MIT finally bit the bullet and boldly changed its model by launching the OCW initiative.

More than five years later, the concept has spread to some 120 universities globally under the aegis of the Open Courseware Consortium, with the aim of educating anyone who has access to the web and a desire to learn.

MIT's initiative has attracted worldwide attention with 1.4 million users from Darfur to Azerbaijan.

It has mirror sites in several developing countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, Ghana, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Vietnam, garnering awards for creativity, technology and public service.

Proponents say the main beneficiaries are those in the developing countries, where students cannot afford essential textbooks and universities lack enough resources to set up courses.

John Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health is the biggest of its kind in the world. Prof James Yager, the school's OCW co-ordinator believes the institution's programme will be influencing the development of public health programmes in the developing world.

After resolving the thorny issues of copyright and intellectual properties, Prof Yager and his team have put 40 of their most popular courses online and plan to double that within a year.

But Prof Yager warns that OCW is not a substitute for a university education.

"The users don't get credit for using these contents," he says. "They are for self learners and public health professionals to look at and study on their own. "The contents can also be used by tutors to design their courses to teach their students."

The main funding for most of these projects is coming from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the charity set up by the American entrepreneur William R Hewlett.

Now, the concept of OCW has arrived in the UK. And who better to pioneer it than the Open University (OU), which has four decades of creating materials that support the distance learner.

Since its launch, the OU's Open Learn has attracted more than 100,000 visitors with 7,000 registered users. Their objective is to have 5,400 learning hours of material on the site by next year - that is more than enough to keep a learner studying full-time for two years.

"Yes, people are often surprised at the idea that we're giving away our crown jewel," says Andy Lane, the director of Open Learn. "For the first time, we are making some of our educational resources freely available online to anyone in the world.

"We are encouraging learners to become self-reliant but also to use online communities to support their learning. We are making it possible for educators to download and adapt our materials for their own purposes. All of this will teach us a huge amount about how people can learn and teach online."

Prof Lane says that the OU is extending its services to learners in the UK and abroad.

So, what future challenges will educators face in an OCW-led world?

Candace Thille, the director of Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, warns that sustaining this new trend requires results and that more studies of the impact of open education resources are needed.

"Much of the data remains anecdotal," she says. "The careful studies that have been done have hopeful results, but in the end, data about the value of the efforts is part of maintaining the current high level of enthusiasm."

It is a sentiment shared by Fredric M Litto, the director of the school of the future at Brazil's Sao Paulo University.

"Most universities today are unprepared for the changes society requires, they are not versatile or very adaptable," he says.

"Most universities have still not perceived that the arrival of new information technologies totally changes the role of the institution and the educational process and those that cannot adapt to the changes due to institutional inertia will see their function turn obsolete, their financial basis destroyed, their technologies substituted and their role in scientific and intellectual research reduced."

About the Author:
Shola Adenekan
Please e-mail comments about this article to comments@thenewblackmagazine.com

Continuing education

Continuing education is an all encompassing term within a broad spectrum of post-secondary learning activities and programs. Recognized forms of post-secondary learning activities within the domain include: degree credit courses by non-traditional students, non-degree career training, workforce training, formal personal enrichment courses (both on-campus and online) self-directed learning (such as through Internet interest groups, clubs or personal research activities) and experiential learning as applied to problem solving.
[Learn more at wikipedia]

Vocational & Trade Schools

A vocational school (or trade school or career college ), providing vocational education, is a school in which students are taught the skills needed to perform a particular job. Traditionally, vocational schools have not existed to further education in the sense of liberal arts, but rather to teach only job-specific skills, and as such have been better considered to be institutions devoted to training, not education. That purely vocational focus began changing in the 1990s "toward a broader preparation that develops the academic" and technical skills of students, as well as the vocational.
[Learn more at wikipedia]

Top 100 World Universities
World Rank Institution Region Regional Rank Country
1 Harvard Univ Americas 1 USA
2 Univ Cambridge Europe 1 UK
3 Stanford Univ Americas 2 USA
4 Univ California - Berkeley Americas 3 USA
5 Massachusetts Inst Tech (MIT) Americas 4 USA
6 California Inst Tech Americas 5 USA
7 Columbia Univ Americas 6 USA
8 Princeton Univ Americas 7 USA
9 Univ Chicago Americas 8 USA
10 Univ Oxford Europe 2 UK
11 Yale Univ Americas 9 USA
12 Cornell Univ Americas 10 USA
13 Univ California - San Diego Americas 11 USA
14 Univ California - Los Angeles Americas 12 USA
15 Univ Pennsylvania Americas 13 USA
16 Univ Wisconsin - Madison Americas 14 USA
17 Univ Washington - Seattle Americas 15 USA
18 Univ California - San Francisco Americas 16 USA
19 Johns Hopkins Univ Americas 17 USA
20 Tokyo Univ Asia/Pac 1 Japan
21 Univ Michigan - Ann Arbor Americas 18 USA
22 Kyoto Univ Asia/Pac 2 Japan
23 Imperial Coll London Europe 3 UK
24 Univ Toronto Americas 19 Canada
25 Univ Illinois - Urbana Champaign Americas 20 USA
26 Univ Coll London Europe 4 UK
27 Swiss Fed Inst Tech - Zurich Europe 5 Switzerland
28 Washington Univ - St. Louis Americas 21 USA
29 New York Univ Americas 22 USA
30 Rockefeller Univ Americas 23 USA
31 Northwestern Univ Americas 24 USA
32 Duke Univ Americas 25 USA
32 Univ Minnesota - Twin Cities Americas 25 USA
34 Univ California - Santa Barbara Americas 27 USA
35 Univ Colorado - Boulder Americas 28 USA
36 Univ Texas - Austin Americas 29 USA
37 Univ British Columbia Americas 30 Canada
38 Univ Texas Southwestern Med Center Americas 31 USA
39 Pennsylvania State Univ - Univ Park Americas 32 USA
39 Vanderbilt Univ Americas 32 USA
41 Univ California - Davis Americas 34 USA
41 Univ Utrecht Europe 6 Netherlands
43 Rutgers State Univ - New Brunswick Americas 35 USA
43 Univ Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh Americas 35 USA
45 Karolinska Inst Stockholm Europe 7 Sweden
46 Univ Paris 06 Europe 8 France
47 Univ California - Irvine Americas 37 USA
47 Univ Edinburgh Europe 9 UK
47 Univ Maryland - Coll Park Americas 37 USA
50 Univ Southern California Americas 39 USA
51 Univ Munich Europe 10 Germany
52 Tech Univ Munich Europe 11 Germany
53 Univ Manchester Europe 12 UK
54 Carnegie Mellon Univ Americas 40 USA
55 Univ North Carolina - Chapel Hill Americas 41 USA
56 Australian Natl Univ Asia/Pac 3 Australia
57 Univ Copenhagen Europe 13 Denmark
57 Univ Florida Americas 42 USA
57 Univ Zurich Europe 13 Switzerland
60 Uppsala Univ Europe 15 Sweden
61 Univ Paris 11 Europe 16 France
62 Osaka Univ Asia/Pac 4 Japan
63 Ohio State Univ - Columbus Americas 43 USA
64 Univ Bristol Europe 17 UK
65 Univ Rochester Americas 44 USA
65 Univ Sheffield Europe 18 UK
67 McGill Univ Americas 45 Canada
67 Moscow State Univ Europe 19 Russia
69 Case Western Reserve Univ Americas 46 USA
69 Univ Oslo Europe 20 Norway
71 Univ Heidelberg Europe 21 Germany
72 Univ Leiden Europe 22 Netherlands
73 Tohoku Univ Asia/Pac 5 Japan
73 Univ Arizona Americas 47 USA
75 Purdue Univ - West Lafayette Americas 48 USA
76 Univ Helsinki Europe 23 Finland
77 Michigan State Univ Americas 49 USA
78 Hebrew Univ Jerusalem Asia/Pac 6 Israel
78 Rice Univ Americas 50 USA
80 Boston Univ Americas 51 USA
80 King's Coll London Europe 24 UK
82 Univ Melbourne Asia/Pac 7 Australia
83 Univ Nottingham Europe 25 UK
84 Univ Goettingen Europe 26 Germany
85 Univ Vienna Europe 27 Austria
86 Brown Univ Americas 52 USA
87 Indiana Univ - Bloomington Americas 53 USA
87 Univ Basel Europe 28 Switzerland
89 Texas A&M Univ - Coll Station Americas 54 USA
90 McMaster Univ Americas 55 Canada
90 Univ Freiburg Europe 29 Germany
92 Univ Strasbourg 1 Europe 30 France
93 Ecole Normale Super Paris Europe 31 France
93 Stockholm Univ Europe 31 Sweden
93 Tokyo Inst Tech Asia/Pac 8 Japan
93 Univ Utah Americas 56 USA
97 Univ Roma - La Sapienza Europe 33 Italy
98 Univ Birmingham Europe 34 UK
99 Lund Univ Europe 35 Sweden
100 Tufts Univ Americas 57 USA
[Source: www.arwu.org]

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