Lessons Learned Platform
Introduction
The publication of teaching materials as "open content" is known as OpenCourseWare (OCW). That is, they are intellectual property that ensures the transfer of some copyrights, such as distribution, reproduction, public communication or generation of derivative works. That is to say, not only are they freely accessible content on the web, but they can also be freely reused respecting the quote from the original author. These materials usually correspond to university higher education subjects, both undergraduate and postgraduate.
The authors transfer the rights to the content with the "copyleft" model. Most university OCWs have chosen the Creative Commons approach of non-commercial attribution and license alike,[1] although some of these materials are offered with other permissions, such as the GPL license. These contents are not published in order for users to obtain any degree or certification, but rather in order to enhance the knowledge society and promote subsequent projects between institutions and teachers related to open content.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was the institution that created this initiative. In 2001 it publicly announced that it would give free access to the materials of all its official courses. In 2009 it reached the figure of 1900 published undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The main challenge in implementing it has not been faculty resistance, but the logistical obstacles encountered in determining ownership and obtaining permissions for the massive amount of intellectual property elements that are included in MIT faculty course materials, as well as the time and technical effort spent converting them into usable online formats. Copyright of OCW material generally remains with the institution, members of its faculty, or its students.
In 2005, MIT OpenCourseWare and other OCW projects formed the OpenCourseWare Consortium, which seeks to extend the reach and impact of opencourseware materials, and develop sustainable models for their publication.
OpenCourseWare Projects
Asia
• - China: China Open Resource for Education (CORE) is a consortium of Chinese universities that have begun translating MIT-OCW courses into Chinese. They will also be publishing their own courses in the years to come.