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The OpenCourseWare Initiative: A New Model for Sharing

Anne H. Margulies: March 23, 2004; Running Time: 37:35

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

Since making its “proof of concept” debut in the Fall of 2003, MIT’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) Initiative has racked up some impressive numbers. This project makes course materials used in MIT undergraduate and graduate subjects available on the Web, free of charge, to any user anywhere in the world. So far, OCW has translated for the web 700 of MIT’s 2000 courses, spanning MIT’s five schools and all 33 of its academic disciplines, and received “traffic from every country on the planet,” says Anne Margulies. More than 12,000 unique users visit OCW each day, and in a popup survey, 92% of these users pronounced themselves highly satisfied with the site. More than half of these visitors are self-learners, who just want to explore new subjects or stay current on a particular subject. Margulies notes that educators, her primary target group, are enthralled with OCW. They use it to prepare courses or learn new teaching methods. This fits perfectly with MIT’s goal -- the open dissemination of knowledge so that, as Margulies says, “the vision will become a movement” in colleges and universities around the world.

Lecture Details

Location: Univeristy Park

“In doing OpenCourseWare we hope that it’s going to counter this other trend that certainly was coming on strong through the dot-com era, which is to make intellectual property available only to those who can afford to pay for it”

Anne H. Margulies

About the Speaker

Anne H. Margulies

Executive Director
OpenCourseWare

Anne H. Margulies brings 20 years of leadership experience in strategic planning, information technology and operations to the MIT OCW project. She came to MIT in May 2002 from FH/GPC, a government relations, public affairs, and communications consulting firm where she was the Chief Operating Officer. Prior to FH/GPC, Margulies was the executive vice-president of McDermott O'Neill & Associates, where she restructured the senior management team and planned and managed the sale of the company to GPC International. From 1986 to 1998, she held information technology positions at Harvard University, serving as assistant provost and executive director for Harvard's Information Systems department with responsibility for all centralized administrative IT activities.