EDUCAUSE Values: Openness

The latest edition of Educause Review features open textbooks!

Volume 44, Number 1, January/February 2009

MIT's Management School Shares Teaching Materials Online

from the Chronicle:

Though some business schools charge for the “case studies” they develop as teaching aids, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced today that it is making a set of teaching materials available free online.

MIT’s Sloan School of Management has unveiled a set of case studies, videos, interactive teaching tools, and teacher’s notes on a new Web site called MIT Sloan Teaching Innovation Resources.

Strategic Technology Plan: OER included

The Strategic Technology Plan is the product of an 18-month analysis conducted by the Technology Transformation Task Force of the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges for the purpose of creating a roadmap for how our system needs to leverage 21st Century technologies to support student achievement.

There are multiple references to OER including:

Strategy 1 / Action 2: Action 2: Free Textbooks. Wherever possible, eliminate published textbooks in favor of free, open, online materials.

Taiwan Higher Ed Consortium Launches Free Online Course Initiative

from Campus Technology:

A consortium of colleges and universities in Taiwan has launched the "Open Course Ware Consortium," with the goal of sharing its resources with the public. The program is modeled after the OpenCourseWare Consortium originally developed by an MIT faculty committee wishing to share their course materials openly on the Web and now involving 200 institutions and organizations.

The initiative in Taiwan, started by the National Chiao Tung University's (NCTU) Open Education Office, will allow users to download materials for personal use and modify the content.