Open Access at UNIVERSITY – OpenCourseWare and Beyond

Open Access at UNIVERSITY – OpenCourseWare and Beyond

MIT’s OpenCourseWare, along with numerous other University-lead open access learning initiatives, has revealed the world’s thirst for open access knowledge and learning. What have we learned from previous efforts, and how and in what ways can Universities harness the potential of making their course material open access? How do we give knowledge, once put online, a sense of “life” – how do we make it “living” knowledge to be shared and developed with learners around the world? Facilitator: Anne Margulies (MIT OpenCourseWare)

Related Questions:

• How do we create open access journals that are fiscally sustainable?
• Do extension schools dilute the brand of a university?
• Should that even matter?
• If successful, will anyone take the degrees seriously?
• Will normal graduates resent extension students?
• What are the financial and the business models for making a vision of openness possible and sustainable?
• Will becoming more open threaten the standing of the University (as the traditional view would hold) or would it enhance it?
• In what way does Harvard University's concept of openness resonate with the ideas of justice and morality?
• What role will (and what role should) the libraries and museums play in defining how open our universities should be?
• How do we fund research to maximize openness, but still make it possible for interested corporations and governments to participate?
• How do we maintain and guarantee the quality of information as openness increases?
• If you were to create a trustworthy "open" organization (or an organization to which you entreat openness) what would this type of organization look like?
• How should we define openness, particularly in opposition to some concept or definition of closed?
• It is fine and good for Harvard, a multi-billion dollar organization, to advance this vision of openness. But what about the small firms?
• How open or closed should Harvard university be? What is the most interesting issue in relation to this?
• What role do OpenCourseWare systems play in this endeavor to harness the Internet as an open facilitator and distributor of University knowledge?
• What do you feel about openness in classrooms in the for-profit center and impact of this on government and academic arenas? Who should be responsible for the openness of the net?
• Will Harvard consciously and productively define its future position on 'openness' or be dragged there by the rest of the world?
• How does the university's budget allocation and procurement process create incentives for greater openness?
• How do you balance benefits and rights of enrolled/paying students and 'open' university participants?