Welcome to the "Opencourseware How To" Web site:

“We hope that in sharing MIT’s course materials, and our experience thus far with MIT OpenCourseWare, we will inspire other institutions to openly share their course materials.” These words by MIT President Charles M. Vest cut to the core mission of MIT OCW, and were the inspiration for the creation of this, the first release of the “Opencourseware How To” Web site.

This site is designed to help institutions interested in creating their own opencourseware initiatives get started on making the case at their institution, planning their program, and implementing that program. We offer a collection of resources and materials that have been developed based on the experience, lessons learned, and key decisions that led to the successful implementation of MIT’s OpenCourseWare initiative.

The goals of this companion site to MIT OCW’s main content site are to:

• Promote the growth of a broad-based opencourseware movement
• Share MIT's experience, and the opencourseware best practices identified thus far, in order to help other institutions avoid the costly reinvention of policy, processes or technology
• Over time, incorporate lessons learned by other institutions undertaking their own opencourseware programs
  

What is Opencourseware?

The opencourseware concept is a part of the larger movement that promotes free and unrestricted access to knowledge. An opencourseware site provides open access to the primary teaching materials for courses taught at educational institutions, enabling educators to draw on the materials for teaching purposes, and students and self-learners to use the materials for the development of their own personal knowledge.

An opencourseware site:

• Publishes course materials created by faculty (and sometimes other colleagues or students) to support teaching and learning
• Is IP-cleared, meaning that the opencourseware publisher has the rights to make the materials available under open terms and that nothing in the materials infringes the copyrights of others
• Offers the materials free of charge for non-commercial use
• Is universally accessible via the Web
• Permits use, reuse, adaptation (derivative works), and redistribution of the materials by others
   

Foundation Support MIT OCW and the "Opencourseware How To" site is funded jointly by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and MIT

Learn about the MIT  OpenCourseWare Project

Since September 2002, MIT OCW has published more than 900 courses from 33 academic disciplines and all all five of MIT's schools.

MIT OCW's goals are to:

• Provide free, searchable, access to MIT's course materials for educators, students, and self-learners around the world.
• Extend the reach and impact of MIT OCW and the "opencourseware" concept.

MIT OCW would not be possible without the support and generosity of the MIT faculty who choose to share their research, pedagogy, and knowledge to benefit others.

We expect MIT to reach a steady - though never static - state by 2008. Between now and then, we will publish the materials from virtually all 1800 of MIT's undergraduate and graduate courses.

Read the MIT OpenCourseWare story.