Creating and Managing an OCW Team

Key Points

• Organize and staff OpenCourseWare according to the scope of the effort. Most functions may already exist at your institution – leverage them when possible. How you organize will be institution-specific.
• Make the organization “faculty-centric.” A key success factor is to make it easy and worthwhile for faculty to participate.

Staffing for the various OpenCourseWare functions will depend on the scope of the OpenCourseWare effort and the availability of services on campus. In some environments, more than one function might be combined into a single position. For a large implementation, multiple staff might be needed for just one function. Institutions may choose to outsource some functions. The principal functions involved in running an OpenCourseWare are listed below.

• Executive leadership and overall program management. Manage relationships with sponsors, funding organizations, other internal and external stakeholder groups, strategic direction and goal setting, overall organization, and program leadership and management.
• Faculty relationship management. Enlisting new faculty and managing ongoing relationships with faculty who are providing content to OpenCourseWare.
• Content production and publication. Plan, build, publish, and support maintenance of the courses.
• Intellectual property and licensing. Define intellectual property (IP) and end-user licensing strategy and processes, evaluate content for IP issues.
• Information Technology. Design, build and operate all technical infrastructure and resources required to meet the program goals.
• Communications and outreach. Create awareness among target audiences and other user groups. Undertake press and other internal and external communication-related activities.
• Evaluation and Assessment. Measure and evaluate program performance against goals and external benchmarks.