A Message from the President
		MIT is delivering on the promise that it made when OpenCourseWare was announced in 2001, and we are pleased that educators and learners from all parts of the globe tell us that OCW is already having an impact on education and learning. We see OCW as opening a new door to the democratizing and transforming power of education. We hope the idea of openly sharing course materials will propagate throughout many institutions and create a global web of knowledge that will enhance the quality of learning and, therefore, the quality of life worldwide.
			We thank our sponsors, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as the faculty who have dedicated so much creative energy and time to this endeavor. We are pleased to have you as a participant in this educational journey.
			Charles M. Vest, President, MIT

Opportunity and Openness

President Charles M. Vest's charge to the graduates at MIT's 136th Commencement, June 7, 2002.
http://web.mit.edu/president/communications/com02.html

"And let us also resolve that our new technologies—the Internet and the World Wide Web—will be used as tools of empowerment and democratization on a global scale. Next fall, the MIT Faculty will launch its MIT OpenCourseWare initiative—a program that will make the basic educational materials for 2,000 of our subjects available on the Web—available to anyone anywhere free of charge. "Why would we do this? Because we see it as part of our mission: to help to raise the quality of higher education in every corner of the globe. "This program is based on the twin values of opportunity and openness. These are values that have made our universities and our nation strong. They are values that will keep our world safe and strong. And they are values that you should treasure and protect as you make your way in the world."

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Disturbing the Educational Universe: Universities in a Digital Age—Dinosaurs or Prometheans?

President Charles M. Vest's annual report for the academic year 2000-01, which examines the impact of technology on higher education and assesses the future role of the research-intensive residential university.
http://web.mit.edu/president/communications/rpt00-01.html

"The computer industry learned the hard way that closed software systems—based on a framework of proprietary knowledge—did not fit the world they themselves had created. The organic world of open software and open systems was the true wave of the future. Higher education must learn from this.We must create open knowledge systems as the new framework for teaching and learning. "In this spirit, MIT has asked itself, in the words of T. S. Eliot, 'Do I dare...Disturb the universe?' "Our answer is yes. We call this project MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW). We see it as opening a new door to the powerful, democratizing, and transforming power of education."

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Commencement Address, June 7, 2002, James D. Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2002/comm-jdw.html

"And we, at our institution [The World Bank], feel very privileged to have relationships with you and, in particular, on what I think may well be the most significant advance that this institution will ever have, the advance in relation to the opening of your courses in the MIT OpenCourseWare program in which we're engaged not just with our African Virtual University but, hopefully as the years progress, in making possible the underlying knowledge, experience and education forces that there are in this university. Let me say that from my point of view, working in the Bank, dealing with the issues of development, that this contribution may well be the greatest thing that you've ever done. And I congratulate you and applaud you for the opening of this prospect not only to this country but to the world."

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