About OpenCourseWare
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Current information about this web site and the eduCommons software that runs it.
Thank you for your interest in Notre Dame Opencourseware (OCW) Pilot Project. Funded by a two-year grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and hosted by the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning, our OCW seeks to publish 30 courses focused on the human condition. This site launched with the first eight courses on September 20, 2006 and continues to grow. If you missed the site launch event, you can still tune in to some of the highlights.
An “opencourseware” is a free and open digital publication of course materials. By offering free, high-quality course materials to the world, OCW strives to overcome the barriers geography, economics, age and language present to the spread of knowledge. OCW is neither a distance-education or degree-granting initiative but rather an open dissemination of educational materials, philosophy, and modes of thought.
In creating an opencourseware, Notre Dame joins the OCW Consortium, a collaboration of more than more than 100 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 Consortium’s stated mission is “to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware.” Notre Dame's participation is of a piece not only with its history, reaching back to its founding as an educational mission to native Americans, but also with its goal "to provide a forum where through free inquiry and open discussion the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and every other area of human scholarship and creativity."
More information about this site:
About the eduCommons Content Management System
This site is based on eduCommons 3.1.0-final.
eduCommons is server software designed by the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning to provide last-mile support for open access initiatives like Notre Dame OpenCourseWare, Utah State University OpenCourseWare or MIT OpenCourseWare. Many institutions already deliver digital educational materials via a closed access learning management system like WebCT or Blackboard. With this existing collection of digitized educational materials, such an institution is very close to being able to launch its own open access collection initiative. eduCommons begins here, providing the remaining functionality necessary to successfully develop and manage the collection, including a workflow process that steps users through uploading materials into the repository, the copyright clearance process, reassembly of materials into courses, a quality assurance process, and final publication of the materials. Powered by Python, Zope, and Plone, eduCommons is open source software that runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows platforms.
eduCommons's goals are to:
- Provide free, searchable, access to course materials for educators, students, and self-learners around the world.
- Catalyze the growth of communities of learners.
- Extend the reach and impact of the "opencourseware" concept.
Appreciation
Neither Notre Dame OCW nor eduCommons would be possible without:
- Generous funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
- Generous support from MIT OpenCourseWare including sharing their process documentation which has contributed significantly to our success.
- Support from the Center for Open and
Sustainable Learning.
