Page:A Review of the Open Educational Resources Movement.pdf/27



The OER program aspires to provide open access to (and eventually open contribution to) high-quality education resources on a global scale in many languages. The portfolio has supported a mix of provisioning high-quality OER, particularly in the United States, and its use worldwide, especially in developing countries. The impact is very impressive as measured by the international participation. The OpenCourseWare Consortium membership lists the huge consortium of Chinese institutions in CORE together with cadres of volunteers translating course material from English to Chinese. CORE now has over 100 university members with five million students. The ten lead universities use several hundred MIT OCW in their teaching programs. This has had a major impact on Chinese education. CORE also has about 150 Chinese courses on its website that can be shared globally.

International impact has been led by the OCW activities, but there has also been significant impact in the broader agenda of OER and ICT-supported learning beyond OCW. This impact has occurred through international projects such as Teachers Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA), Open University UK, Open University Netherlands, European Association of Distance and Teaching Universities, India National Knowledge Commission (through a grant to MIT), OECD, and UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP).

In France, we find the Paris Technology “Graduate School,” a coalition of a dozen technical schools. The Japan OCW Consortium includes ten universities. Universities in Spain and Portugal have rallied around Universia OCW based largely upon MIT OCW material translated into Spanish.

Effectively involving Africa in OCW is a complex process. Hewlett has worked primarily through the African Virtual University, and MIT has worked directly with some additional schools in South Africa. The recent investment by Hewlett in the Open University UK to enhance its participation in the OER movement, including access in Africa, is a good strategic move and may well leverage the excellent track record of the Open University in international engagement.