Tufts on March 1 joined a dozen other schools and groups in pledging a combined total of $350,000 over five years to the OpenCourseWare (OCW) Consortium in a show of support of information sharing.
An OCW is a digital publication of educational resources and course material that is free to access. The OCW Consortium seeks to promote the accessibility and use of OCW among universities and related institutions.
"The goals of the consortium are to support the creation and use of [OCW] materials worldwide, to help universities start new [OCW] projects and to help schools run their programs efficiently so that worldwide audiences are aware and know how they can be used," Stephen E. Carson, president of the consortium and external relations director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) OCW Consortium, told the Daily.
Tufts OCW Editor and Curricular Content Specialist Robbin Smith explained that educational material from Tufts courses on all three campuses are published online. Some of the more popular classes include Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Zoological Medicine, Population Health, Introduction to Modern Physics and Pathophysiology of Infectious Diseases.
OCW's advantages include highlighting course offerings, stimulating faculty collaboration and enabling faculty to further develop courses, according to Smith.
"Tufts OCW helps advance knowledge globally, particularly in developing nations; it enhances Tufts' image around the world," Smith said in an e-mail to the Daily.
Smith noted that Tufts has been involved with OCW efforts since late 2004, when MIT requested that the university participate as a founding member of the consortium, Smith said.
Carson noted that Tufts' commitment to OCW was partially motivated by University President Lawrence Bacow's experiences at MIT.
"President Bacow was chancellor at MIT when the OCW was first proposed, and he brought with him to Tufts a very strong and broad commitment to sharing educational resources," Carson said.
Associate Provost Mary Lee, who led the collaboration with MIT and the launch of OCW efforts at Tufts, explained that OCW falls under the broader Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, in which Tufts has played a significant role.
"We are leaders particularly in the health sciences, where content, methods, and tools have been openly shared with global partners," Lee said in an e-mail to the Daily. "Tufts has been engaged in sharing … since the 1980s."
Tufts' first OER program, Perseus, was designed to move libraries onto the Internet. Such programs, Lee said, are important in facilitating cooperation in tackling world problems.
"These multidisciplinary and multi-institutional partnerships illustrate how we must collaborate now and in the future to solve the highly complex problems facing the world today," Lee said. "Tufts is at the forefront of these types of efforts."
Tufts' usage of OCW is part of the university's commitment to making information accessible, according to Smith.
"The project continues the Tufts tradition of knowledge-sharing as part of our non-profit mission as well as Tufts' leadership in civic engagement, particularly in the health sciences," Smith said.
While Tufts is a leader in the OER movement, the university is not alone, according to Carson.
"There are approximately 250 schools worldwide that are participating," Carson said. "[In] total they have published 13,000 total courses worth of material."
Carson noted, however, that the majority of the schools involved are international schools. "There are maybe two dozen schools in the United States in the consortium," he said.
He added that Tufts' longtime commitment to OCW demonstrates its commitment to the sharing of educational resources.
"[Tufts'] involvement also represents a commitment to the global effort to publish educational materials and to ensure schools all around the world have the support they need," Carson said.
