MIT encountered several challenges as it developed its project, not the least of which was dealing with copyright law. Copyright issues were addressed by attaching the Digital Commons license to each item in inventory, providing assurance that users can safely and legally utilize material they find in the OCW repository. MIT has also established workflow processes to create online resources and systems to monitor usage.

Although OCW has revealed the fact that courseware is not as commercially valuable as previously thought, it has demonstrated that high-quality material can have a very high social value. It has also demonstrated the public relations value of an altruistic stance, and most importantly, created a distribution system for courseware.

Why Should UC Be Involved with the Open Educational Resource Exchange Movement?

The efforts of MIT and other institutions that are joining the Open Educational Resource Exchange (OERE) movement provide some clear examples of the potential OERE-generated benefits to both UC and its faculty.

Institutional benefits
1. Provides a visible contribution consistent with the traditional openness of the University and its commitment to public service.
2. Provides a public and highly accessible place to store material developed by UC and UC faculty, material which otherwise is unlikely to be used.
3. Provides the opportunity to initiate cooperation among UC campuses and faculty
4. Showcases outstanding courses and faculty
5. Provides students with supplementary learning materials
6. Increases course quality through its visibility
7. Allows alumni to retain an academic link to the University
8. Enhances UC's reputation as an educational leader
9. Provides an archive of material readily available to teachers and learners

An unexpected but welcome benefit that MIT has experienced is that the number of "drops and adds" at the beginning of each term has decreased dramatically -- students can now shop online before the course begins to see what they are in for, rather than having to attend the first course meeting.

Benefits to faculty
1. Showcases faculty work to a very large audience
2. Allows for comments on the work and the opportunity for updates and improvements based on those comments
3. Provides an academic legacy (the Digital Commons licenses requires attribution for use)
4. Reduces preparation time and face-to-face meetings

Faculty at MIT report that through OCW they have been able to identify cross disciplinary research projects by searching and reviewing the syllabi of the online material.

In addition, the OERE movement provides a vehicle for the University to target highly deserving audiences for its high quality materials. An example is UC Irvine Extension's grant-funded project to help California K-12 teachers become qualified to teach science and mathematics.

The OERE movement is but one example of the institutional impulse to distinguish universities from the commercial interests, including textbook and journal publishers, who depend on, some would say exploit, the academic community including students. UC has clearly taken the lead in some of these new efforts and the OERE movement is another opportunity for UC to demonstrate its leadership.

Dr. Gary W. Matkin is the Dean of Continuing Education at University of California, Irvine.