When MIT OpenCourseWare began as a project, the announcement that their “materials organized as courses” would be available to the entire world, sent shock waves throughout the world of education. However, today, “open education” is much more than static materials. Some of the biggest advances are in the world of learning sciences, software engineering, […]
Unintended but Welcome Consequences of Using Open Resources
At this year’s Open Education Conference in Vancouver, Canada, there were several sessions on how the use of OER led to”better” learning outcomes for students than the use of “paid-for” textbooks and other materials. Needless to say, this is certainly a nice conclusion for supporters of the open education movement! However, is it really true […]
Free Textbooks, Anyone?
One of the most important uses of Open Education Resources (OERs) at many universities is as a textbook replacement. Several universities have begun offering what some institutions call “z-degrees,” meaning that they require “zero” textbooks. OERs take the place of textbooks. Examples include Tidewater Community College, Northern Virginia Community College, Thomas Edison State College, and the University System […]
Open Education – Who is it For?
One of the original motivating factors for the Open Education movement was to allow less-developed countries with fewer educational resources to have access to quality course materials from the world’s best universities. However, anyone can benefit from Open Education – even learners within a developed country like the United States! Case-in-point: The Williamson Community Unified […]
Instructional Design and Open Educational Resources
Suppose you’re designing an online course. How might you use Open Educational Resources (OER)? Let’s take a quick look at a common model for instructional design – the ADDIE model. (There are many others but this one is very common and useful for our discussion.) A – Analysis: Identification and clarification of the instructional goals […]
MOOC? OCW? Which one?
What should I “do,” OpenCourseWare or a MOOC? While this is not a new question – there are plenty of articles and blog posts in cyberspace that address this – I thought I would make a few comments based on what we’re currently doing here at UCI, where we have both MOOCs (offered primarily through […]
Online Education Quality
Two important online education organizations, University Professional Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) and Online Learning Consortium (OLC), recently sent a joint letter to members of congress serving on two education committees regarding misconceptions about the quality of online education expressed in recent public statements. While the letter focuses on complete courses offered by universities and colleges, […]
UCI OCW Contributor James Bullock “excited” by Recent Astronomical Find
OpenCourseWare contributor and staunch supporter James Bullock (Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UC Irvine) was “pretty excited” by news that theoretical predictions he and a former graduate student made years ago were validated by recent observations of a galaxy in its early stages of formation. The observations were reported online in the journal Nature by Caltech astrophysicist Christopher Martin and […]
Two-Week Visit from Female Saudi Educators
This week and next, UCI Open Education Resources (a.k.a. OCW) and University Extension are pleased to welcome nearly 30 female faculty members from Saudi Arabia as part of the eLearning Pioneers Female Faculty Development Program sponsored by the Saudi Ministry of Education. This visit was arranged by the Open Education Consortium. During the visit, UCI will provide (1) facility […]
OCW Website available on new server
We are happy to announce that the site has transitioned to new servers. While we believe that this will provide longterm scalability, some of you noticed that our database connection went out this morning. Fortunately, we are back up and running. Thanks for your patience during this transition. If you experience any issues, please contact […]