It is now possible to take an MIT aerospace dynamics class in Antarctica, thanks to one of the newest trends in American higher education.
For the last four years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been pioneering a system known as OpenCourseWare, which allows any Internet user to access materials -- including lecture notes, problem sets and quizzes -- from various university courses.
Although six other American universities have followed in MIT's footsteps, Penn is not planning such a move.
OCW sites present course materials in a more centralized format, as opposed to being scattered throughout the personal sites of faculty members.
Penn "certainly [has] plenty of course sites available to the public," said Ira Winston, who is the information technology executive director for the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Design.
Winston noted that the "fundamental difference" between schools with OCW and Penn revolves around copyright issues.
All intellectual property posted on OCW sites must be cleared for copyright issues, and similarly, Penn professors are forced to restrict public access to all online copyrighted material.
Copyright issues are a major obstacle for OCW programs, as permission must be obtained for the use of copyrighted materials embedded in professors' lecture notes.
Still, Penn has made other efforts to allow the public more access to its professors' research, as the recently created Scholarly Commons program allows Engineering faculty to post papers online.
"The primary reason that MIT is doing [OCW] is that its leaders believe in the benefits of openly sharing educational materials and knowledge," MIT OCW Communications Manager Jon Paul Potts said.
MIT has published the materials for 915 courses on the Web so far and expects to add 175 more by April.
The school plans to offer materials for all of its 1,800 courses online by 2007 -- all at a cost of several million dollars per year.
Potts added that in addition to being a "a great boost to MIT's image," OCW has brought other perks to the institution.
For example, it has reduced the need for a class-shopping period because students can preview a course on OCW before registering for it.
It has also been a "wonderful recruiting tool" for undergraduate and graduate students as well as young faculty eager to "get their work out there," Potts said.
He cited a survey of the MIT freshman class in which 8 percent of students responded that OCW was a factor in their decision to attend MIT.
Moreover, OCW has given MIT greater international exposure, as 55 percent of its users reside outside of North America.
Many users live in developing nations and cannot afford traditional education, according to Potts, who said that the Web site has been accessed in every country in the world -- as well as Antarctica.
MIT's OCW program, which costs approximately $5 million annually to run, requires a 20-person office staff. The site is partially funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Several other schools -- including the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore -- have smaller programs.
"It's very expensive, and it's very time consuming," said Thea Glidden, one of the coordinators of OCW at Johns Hopkins.
The Hewlett-funded program -- which has cost $200,000 since its development began a year ago -- was officially launched Monday with the online publication of two classes. Eight more classes will be published by next month, and Glidden expects to have a total of 50 courses online by 2010.
"I think it's good for the institution and good for the world," she said. "I think it's the most exciting thing going on in academia."
Assistance from MIT was instrumental in developing the Johns Hopkins site.
Potts noted that in addition to publishing courses online, one of MIT's main goals is to spread OCW to other universities. He added that MIT would offer advice and share technology with any school wishing to embark on an OCW program.
"We would never dare tell Penn how to run its business," Potts said, "but we'd be thrilled if Penn decided to embark on a OCW project."
