Open Courseware is a great resource for students and outsiders to gain an overview about the university’s courses, faculty to learn from each other’s courses, and alumni to discover how the university’s courses have changed over time. In October 2002, the OCW movement first launched off at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

MIT has over 1500 courses published and with currently at twenty-three UMass Boston courses published, UMB is ready to expand the OCW movement.

Some of the benefits of publishing course materials to OCW include that students can use OCW to make more informed decisions about programs and courses; prospective UMB students are more likely to find out about courses and can register early; students who use OCW may perform better in their classes and are less likely to transfer or withdraw; and OCW showcases UMB’s curriculum, strengths, reputation, and promotes international engagement.

Eileen McMahon, staff of Educational Technologies, is a fan of open culture movements that are accessible to the public. She believes that the public can learn from each other without any copyright issues. It has a huge impact on students, McMahon says.

When course materials?are published to UMB’s?Open Courseware website, they are shared under the Creative Commons share-alike license, which means you retain your copyright to your materials but invite them to be shared and reused with the public as long as you are cited as the copyright holder. Professors may contribute as little as their syllabus or as much as their lecture notes.

Professor Kaffenberger of the gerontology master’s program believes “it’s exciting to think of participating in such a useful sort of project and culture.”

To learn more about UMass Boston’s open courseware, visit their website at http://ocw.umb.edu.