Open Courses: Free, but Oh, So Costly

Chronicle Article

I think the crux of the article is:

"I think the economics of open courseware the way we've been doing it for the last almost decade have been sort of wrong," Mr. Wiley tells The Chronicle. Projects aimed for "the world," not bread-and-butter clientele like alumni and students. "Because it's not connected to any of our core constituencies, those programs haven't been funded with core funding. And so, in a climate where the economy gets bad and foundation funding slows, then that's a critical juncture for the movement."

Sustainable investments need to be for local projects - for local reasons. That is, do what you were going to do anyway ... just do it digitally, and then put CC BY licensing on it and share it with others. The global sharing piece doesn't have to be expensive ... post it in Connexions and do some quick blog, twitter and listserv advertising through your network - and, if the content is quality and useful, word will spread.

Follow-up from Inside Higher Ed