Embrace Open Courseware

Universities and colleges are often considered the most liberal institutions in world. They are the place where learning and discovery happen, where ideas are cultivated and explored. Students come in with open minds ready to take on the challenges of the world regardless of how daunting they may seem. Professors help them through their journeys, offering compelling courses and lessons based on their research, thinking and experience.

This sounds like a lovely utopian society where ideals can be sought, but of course, this is the real world. We all know that in higher education there is major competition between universities and colleges globally. They are seeking the highest caliber of student, the best academics and of course the most money from donors. The professors are also often in a publish or perish contest against their peers at other schools. Collaboration between schools is not always encouraged – your school must lead and be first in everything! This seems a bit counterproductive to the virtues that most of the schools espouse.

One way that schools can break down some of these barriers is to embrace open sharing – sharing of their courses materials, lesson plans and lectures – with other schools around the world. Let other schools see how you are teaching a subject, whether it is philosophy, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, graphic design or architecture. Most colleges and universities can’t afford the top scholars, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have access to their teaching materials.

There are many higher education institutions that are embracing the open sharing concept – more commonly known as open courseware. MIT is one of the most prominent universities to become a supporter of open courseware. They share almost all of their course content online and are part of the larger Open Courseware Consortium. The Open Courseware Consortium is a collaboration of more than 200 higher education institutions around the world that agree to share course content under a Creative Commons license that allows for sharing and remixing/altering of content with attribution.

Think about how powerful this can be. Sharing course content means scholars across the globe will have complete access to the work of other scholars, which can only enhance teaching. It will lead to new insights, new thinking and new learning for college students. I’d love to see more colleges and universities take part in this movement. All they have to do to be part of the Consortium is commit to sharing materials from at least 10 courses. There are some universities from the Arab region involved, but there is certainly a dearth of Arabic course materials. How about it Qatar University and all those schools in Education City? Start sharing!