Universities pledge funds to support OpenCourseWare Consortium

Cambridge, MA, March 1, 2010 – Universities and non-profits that have led the movement to openly share educational content are now stepping forward with funding to ensure the movement’s future. A core group of leaders in the OpenCourseWare community have collectively pledged US $350,000 over the next five years to support the OpenCourseWare Consortium, the non-profit association of global OpenCourseWare publishers. Other members will pay annual dues of US $50 to $500 dollars to ensure the Consortium has the funding necessary to catalyze the development and use of OpenCourseWare content worldwide.

Many university OpenCourseWare programs and the OpenCourseWare Consortium have historically been grant funded. As these grants expire, OCW programs and the Consortium are transitioning to sustainable funding models. “These commitments demonstrate the strength of the movement,” said Stephen Carson, President of the Consortium. “Not only are these universities sustaining their own publications, but they are making meaningful commitments to the global effort to openly publish educational materials.”

The following universities and organizations have each pledged US $25,000 over the next five years in support of the OpenCourseWare Consortium: China Open Resources for Education (China), Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands), Japan OpenCourseWare Consortium (Japan), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (United States), Korea OpenCourseWare Consortium (Korea), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States), Open Universiteit (the Netherlands), Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico), Tufts University (United States), Universia.net (Spain), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain), University of California, Irvine (United States), University of Michigan (United States), and University of the Western Cape (South Africa).

To date the approximately 200 universities of the Consortium have published materials from more than 13,000 courses, available through the Consortium’s Web site . These materials are freely available on the web as resources to support informal and formal teaching and learning worldwide, and have received an estimated 100 million visits from virtually every country and region in the world.

About the OpenCourseWare Consortium

The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 200 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is supported in part by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

About OpenCourseWare

OpenCourseWare (OCW) is course materials—typically including syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, exams and occasionally videos of classroom activities—openly published on the web for reuse and redistribution by educators and learners around the world.

For more information, please contact:

Stephen Carson
President, OpenCourseWare Consortium
P: (617) 253-1250
C: (617) 633-4659
scarson@ocwconsortium.org