28 August 2002

Attend MIT for free

By Jim Pinto

How are you upgrading yourself? Are you studying regularly? Or do you just do it "on the fly"? What would it take for you to go to college again? How about MIT?

Many universities have been striving to market their courses to the Internet masses. But the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has chosen the opposite path: to post virtually all its course materials on the Web, free to everybody.

In April 2001, MIT announced its commitment to make the materials from virtually all of its courses freely available on the Web for noncommercial use. This new initiative, called MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) reflects MIT's institutional commitment to disseminate knowledge across the globe.

The 10-year MIT initiative, apparently the biggest of its kind, aims to create public Web sites for almost all of its 2,000 courses and to post materials such as lecture notes, problem sets, syllabuses, exams, simulations, and even video lectures. Professors' participation will be voluntary, but the university is committing itself to post sites for all of its courses, at a cost of up to $100 million.

Charles Vest, president of MIT, said the giveaway idea came in a "traditional eureka moment" as the institute, like nearly every other university, brainstormed and soul searched about how best to take advantage of the Internet.

MIT sees OCW as a way to share its thinking about the content of a modern curriculum in all the areas in which MIT excels. Users of the OCW site may include other academics around the world and individual learners who may not have access to similar educational materials.

The task of creating a highly visible Web site that draws together the materials of virtually all of MIT's course offerings is considerable. However, the majority of the MIT faculty support this effort and believe it is consistent with MIT's long-standing objective to focus the contributions of its faculty and its new technologies on broad, societal benefits.

Take a look, and sign up. Wherever you are, you can attend MIT: MIT OpenCourseware

Behind the byline

Jim Pinto is founder of San Diego-based Action Instruments. You can e-mail him at jim@jimpinto.com, or view his writings at www.JimPinto.com.