In recent years MIT has been releasing course materials online through their OpenCourseware project, making content available all around the world for free. Many people have benefited and continue to benefit today from having these materials available. Other universities are also now beginning to see the value of participating in similar movements, and are publishing OpenCourseware sites of their own. This movement is growing across the world including universities from several countries such as Japan, China, Spain, the Netherlands, Mexico, and the United States. Producing web sites with freely available educational content can be a complicated endeavor for many academic institutions. Work is currently being done to reduce the technological and economic barriers to participating in OpenCourseware. A project called eduCommons, which is built by the Center for Open Sustainable Learning (COSL) at Utah State University, is making it easier for institutions share their course materials. This session will detail the evolution of eduCommons, from its first release on Plone 1.5.2, to the most current version that has just been released on Plone 3. Even if you are not involved in OpenCourseware, but are contemplating making course materials or educational content available on the web, you will want to learn about our approach to writing reusable Plone based educational products, and learn about best practices of how to publish educational content from those who have been involved in the OpenCourseware movement.

1. Plone in Education: A Case Study of the Use of Plone and Education... http://localhost:9000/test/plone-conference-2007/plone-in-education/...
Plone in Education: A Case Study of the Use of
Plone and Educational Content
Brent Lambert, David Ray
What is OpenCourseWare?
Makes available course materials from higher ed institutions to all
Used for informal learning environments
Supplements existing course materials
Allows professors to share materials
What it is not
Not for credit
No access to professors, instructors
MIT, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The birth of OpenCourseWare
Quote
“We hope that in sharing MIT’s course materials, and our experience thus far with MIT
OpenCourseWare, we will inspire other institutions to openly share their course materials.”
Charles M. Vest, Former President, MIT
Who is Participating?
MIT, John's Hopkins, Notre Dame
Many other Universities across the World in Japan, China, Taiwan, Spain, UK, Netherlands and
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2. Plone in Education: A Case Study of the Use of Plone and Education... http://localhost:9000/test/plone-conference-2007/plone-in-education/...
more
Universities in the State of Utah, Utah State University
OpenCourseWare Consortium
http://ocwconsortium.org
Ubiquitous
The goal is to make OpenCourseWare as common as having a web site at higher education establishments.
Achieving the Goal
Making it as easy as possible
Lowering the cost of participating in OCW
Supporting Best Practices, and making sure materials are high quality
Minimizing the legal risk of publishing materials in an open manner
Maximizing access to materials through accessibility
Barriers
High cost of developing courses
Infrastructure needed
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3. Plone in Education: A Case Study of the Use of Plone and Education... http://localhost:9000/test/plone-conference-2007/plone-in-education/...
Rolling your own vs. Off the shelf
Technical Resources (e. g. software, systems, sysadmin)
For Example
MIT OpenCourseWare grant $30million+
Built on proprietary software
Course Materials move through three separate systems
Large production team
The question of Copyright
Creative Commons Licensing
Open Content as well as Open Source
Averting Risk
Solution
If OpenCourseWare is to succeed, a better way of doing things is needed.
What is eduCommons?
An OpenCourseWare management system
A place to publish course materials
Built on top of Plone
Open source software (GPL)
Freely available (just like Plone)
What eduCommons is Not
eduCommons is not an LMS
Does not track student grades
Does not provide access to instructors
Why Plone?
Multi-Lingual
Accessibility
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4. Plone in Education: A Case Study of the Use of Plone and Education... http://localhost:9000/test/plone-conference-2007/plone-in-education/...
Feature Set (workflows, user roles, built in authentication)
Rapid Development
Community support
Key Features
Can track accessibility and copyright clearance
Can bulk upload content using zip archives
Can import content from Blackboard, WebCT
Supports workflows and user roles for developing content
Has comprehensive copyright licensing engine
Additional Features
RSS Feeds
Built in bookmarking for end users
Embedded Machine Readable Licenses
As easy to use as editing a blog
Demo
Creating a new course
Uploading content
Who is using eduCommons
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5. Plone in Education: A Case Study of the Use of Plone and Education... http://localhost:9000/test/plone-conference-2007/plone-in-education/...
eduCommons at Utah State University
Other Uses
OOPS - Chinese Translation
Site copies for 3rd World locations without or with limited internet access
Higher Education
What have we learned working with OCW in higher education?
Key Points
Working with higher ed institutions takes time
Dealing with the quot;Not built herequot; mentality
Fitting into existing infrastructures
Key Points (continued)
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6. Plone in Education: A Case Study of the Use of Plone and Education... http://localhost:9000/test/plone-conference-2007/plone-in-education/...
Expertise of people using and building courses
Cathedral vs Bazaar
Complimenting other open source software instead of competing
The Future
More rich support for mulitmedia
podcasting, video
Convergence between LMS and OCW management systems
Lowering the cost of OCW even further
Questions?
Thank You
http://cosl.usu.edu/projects/educommons
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