OCWC Newsletter Dec. 2009

Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges
The most exciting part about OpenCourseWare is that it never ceases to evolve; the basic idea of sharing takes on a new and different form through individual projects. There has been a very active movement for community colleges to open up education in recent years. Among them, the Washington State Student Completion Initiative is a program that strives to assist students especially from lower income families to complete their education. Open contents is a big part of the initiative. In order to strengthen the curriculum and teaching in basic gatekeeper courses, 80 high enrollment courses will be redesigned for online and blended delivery and will be available to the public. Opening the courses is an attempt at reducing the cost of textbooks for the students and at promoting active sharing among colleges. With the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges as a new member of the Consortium, we are looking forward to more activities from community colleges from around the world.

APTIKOM in Indonesia
APTIKOM is an association of computer science departments from more than 700 universities in Indonesia. During the annual conference held on November 18th and 19th, there was an in-depth discussion on utilizing OpenCourseWare for setting standards to improve the quality of education and pedagogical practices. Meena Hwang, the Interim Director of Community Outreach, gave a presentation OCWC. APTIKOM is now preparing to launch their OCW site as a collaborative effort between universities, the government, and the private sector. The use of open source software and open contents is a well received idea in Indonesia, and we hope to witness an upsurge of OCW from Indonesia. Interviews from APTIKOM are available on Youtube.

The OCWC Webinar
The monthly webinars are usually held on the first Thursday of the month. However, in January, we are having it on the 14th, the second Thursday of the month so that you can enjoy all the holiday festivities you can. Clay Whipkey, the Technology Director of OCWC will give a talk on “Why and How of Metadata.” All those interested can join us at http://breezemeeting.asu.edu at 10AM EST, January 14th. Adobe Connect Pro may require your computer to upgrade your Flash version, so please come and check in ahead of time to make sure that you meet the technical requirements. The meeting room will be open a day in advance so you can check the technical specifications.

You can view Larry Cooperman’s webinar on increasing visibility for your OCW project from December here.

Bits and Pieces
– OLNet is offering fellowship opportunities for researchers and students interested in OER. Visit the website for more details.

– The 5th International Conference of Learning International Networks Consortium (LINC) will be held from May 23rd to 26th, 2010 at MIT. Charles Vest is one of the plenary speakers at an event built around the issue of the use of technology in extending higher education in developing countries.

– The Call for Participation for the OCWC Global 2010 pages is open at http://conference.ocwconsortium.org.