The fragmented world of open courseware should be transformed into “a worldwide resource that’s very clear who should use what,” Bill Gates said in a speech on Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Microsoft founder praised MIT as being “at the forefront” in open courseware, adding that he has taken many of the institution’s OpenCourseWare classes. But he said some problems have yet to be solved in open courseware, such as how to make courses across campuses easier to find and how to best use interactive features.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is looking at how to help support innovation in open courseware, he said. “What’s been done so far has had very modest funding. This is an area we need more resources, more bright minds, and certainly one that I want to see how the foundation could make a contribution to this.”
The foundation announced $12.9-million in technology-related educational grants in December, including $2.5-million for Carnegie Mellon University’s Community College Open Learning Initiative. Marie Groark, a foundation spokeswoman, said that it is “scoping out” options for a second round of grants, but that “nothing’s been determined or set.”
Other coverage of Mr. Gates’s speech can be found online, including a video and an article in The Boston Globe.
8 Responses to Bill Gates Says Open Courseware Is Good but Needs Improvement
john_finn - April 22, 2010 at 3:30 pm
“a worldwide resource that’s very clear who should use what”: I don’t get it.
jlaster - April 22, 2010 at 3:58 pm
john_finn: What he means is that there should be a way for people to more clearly get directed to the resources they want to use; there should be a way to search through courses from a variety of institutions to find the one that fits you best. -Jill Laster
stevefoerster - April 22, 2010 at 5:13 pm
I’ve worked with OERs for some time now, and a lot of the open courses out there are little more than syllabi and poorly organized lecture notes. What would really be helpful would be content, especially textbooks.
11890636 - April 22, 2010 at 5:58 pm
I think the first three comments demonstrate what Bill Gates is concerned about: we have on the web today 10+ years of university-level (and some quite interesting K12-level) course “materials” on the web, from syllabi and reading lists, to problem sets and answers; to examples and simulations of selected course components; to one-off teaser/promo classes; to lecture notes and slide decks of entire courses; to videos of talking head lectures; to videos synchronized with slide decks; to multi-camera, professionally-produced and edited course presentations; to …. MIT reports numerous Open Courseware “success stories” including formal courses around the world modeled on MIT exemplars; individuals on their own retraining for new careers or exploring professional and personal interests; and current MIT students inspired to apply after exploring the MIT academic offerings online. (Bill may be “exploring” or “retraining” — who knows :)The current worldwide whole is, no doubt, ess than the sum of the parts, yet many of the parts are, today, very compelling. How can current and future online instructional resources be made more valuable to more students, instructors, curriculum designers, and the general population. Sounds like a big project worthy of the Gates Foundation.
arrive2__net - April 22, 2010 at 6:41 pm
From a distance, it looks like the Gates Foundations ideas could take some of the autonomy from people who are currently designing and teaching their own classes. Will the improved resources make a radical improvement expected … or just establish a more bureaucratic top-down regime for course design? Will an existing warehouse of pre-fabricated courses become a barrier to new course development? (Why develop a new innovative course concept when you have a warehouse full of existing designs?) These are unknowns as far as I can tell. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out over the next 20 years. Bernard SchusterArrive2.net
cmorrissey - April 22, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Open Courseware is laying the groundwork for the inevitable availability of access to the best profs in the country–university loyalties will be strained when these valuable resources are available to all “anytime,anywhere”
fergbutt - April 23, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Now if was only more accepting of open-source software.I wonder how much $$$$ universities could save by converting everyone to the free clone of Word/Excel/PowerPoint, a.k.a. openoffice.org?
oliver_l - April 23, 2010 at 4:57 pm
It’s evident that people consume content in a solitary manner. OpenStudy.com, a startup out of Ga Tech’s incubator, is looking to solve this. I predict the traditional brick and mortar institutions become the “instructional hubs” for a much larger and connected audience (student body) in the future.