MIT just got a whole less exclusive.
Now anyone with a computer and Internet access has a shot to compete with whizzes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology thanks to OpenCourseWare, a program that posts online information from each of the university’s 1,800 courses.
The system, which was finally booted up last week after nearly six years of production, includes class lecture notes and audio and video clips that highlight the principles of courses dating back to 1997, said MIT spokesman Steve Carson.
“It’s a publication that is kind of like a course catalog, only with much more information,” Carson said.
A simple click on the fall 2007 Physics of Atmospheres and Oceans site brings up a picture of swirling pink and green dye and a video lecture explaining “Taylor Columns,” while opening the Evolutionary Psychology page from the spring 1999 semester still gives users access to course readings of Darwinian theories from the eight-year-old course.
Carson said 30 percent of the site’s roughly 1 million daily users are students from other schools, while 15 percent are teachers.
“We thought it would originally be a resource mainly for educators, but actually half of the people using the site are not affiliated with the university,” Carson said. “I think that it really produces a tremendous amount of global benefit to improving education and providing opportunity for people around the world. We’re making education available to people who could never study at a university.”
MIT sophomore Olga Botvinnik said she has benefited from the system by being able to plan her schedule or make up material she missed.
“I watch lectures online that I don’t get to go to, and sometimes the course notes online are better than the ones we get in class,” she said. “It’s also a nice way to preview a class you plan on taking — maybe reading up on the notes and doing the problems before the term starts.”
Botvinnik said supplemental materials that are posted online also help her study.
“Now I have access to lots of previous exams and problem sets that I can use for practice,” she said.
Despite the success of MIT’s program, Boston University spokesman Colin Riley said in an email BU has no plans to create a broad OpenCourseWare system, but he said a faculty committee is researching it.
School of Education sophomore Marissa Mead said online material would help her stay up to speed in classes if she happens to miss a day.
“I think [online material] would be helpful as a supplement to my education,” Mead said. “I would definitely use it as a reference. Also, I think it would make it easier to get the materials you didn’t get because you missed a class. Right now, it’s hard to catch up.”
College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Samantha Smart said extensive online course material accessible anywhere takes away the value of expensive tuition.
“I’m not paying $45,000 essentially for an online education,” she said.