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MIT Open Courseware with 500 Courses

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hit-the-books dept.

Comp Bio Guy writes "As promised, MIT has finally released 500 courses worth of lecture notes, syllabi, and exams to provide a 'free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world.' Take a look (and maybe a test or two) at MIT's OCW site."

8 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. Hopefully this will start a trend by Muerto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hope that information will someday be " free as in beer " for everyone. Now if you are born poor you will most likely stay poor... and this is changing. The internet has been a great gift to everyone... it brings people of all income levels to an even playing field.

    1. Re:Hopefully this will start a trend by kurosawdust · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Now if you are born poor you will most likely stay poor

      Whoa. I am a liberal in most cases, but this is just crap. If you have access to the internet and >= 3 or 4 free hours a day and don't have a learning disability, you have (within epsilon of) no excuses. In the case of something like computer science, there is (not even within epsilon of) zero excuse for your aptitude other than your desire and the amount of work you put in. It sounds just as romantic as the quote I am responding to, but it's true; if you plug someone in to the internet, they can learn about almost anything they want and in all probability be great at it - they just have to work.

    2. Re:Hopefully this will start a trend by phoenix_rizzen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem with public libraries is that nobody uses them anymore. This means they are losing funding ... which leads to fewer new books ... which makes it even less relevant and fewer people will use them. The hours are being cut, making it harder for people to use them.

      It'd be nice to see a library that didn't open until after noon, and stayed open into the wee hours. Then it would actually be useful for students, those who work, and so on. Being open from 9 until 5 isn't really convenient for anybody.

    3. Re:Hopefully this will start a trend by stanmann · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well if learning is your goal, your local public college is the place. the library is typically open past 1am, and unless you want to take books with you, is free to non-students.

      --
      Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
  2. Not particularly useful without a teacher by Brahmastra · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A lot of the course notes aren't particularly useful without a teacher actually explaining things to you. For example, look at the following link .
    While some of the notes may be useful and educational, I don't think it replaces a real, live professor explaning things and available to answer questions.

  3. one problem by vraddict · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The fact that the information is available, and even the fact that you can gain access to the instructors for clarification still does not put everyone on an even playing field. The one thing that most people seem to care about are degrees and resumes. The poorest yet most intelligent person in the world could study these courses, and gain an equivalent education to those with degrees, and could even possibly surpass their abilities. It won't do them any good in the present state to learn structural engineering, but not have a degree.

  4. I've Been Using It For Awhile... by the_mad_poster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...and it's great! I'm stuck in a shitty little comm. coll. here where everything is "learn how to use vendor x's program y" and it stinks. I told several profs to their faces now that I'm not coming to any classes when we're not taking a test because there's nothing that I can learn there that I care about or that matters.

    With the Open CourseWare site though, I've started plugging my way through an almost complete cirriculum! I finally got the motivation to learn Java so I could use it in the 6-170 course. The content, organization, and overall structure of the course is incredible (6-170 is by far one of the best classes I've ever had in any subject at any school with any professor ever)! I'm looking forward to following it into the next class I work through on OCW.

    There's no way I can afford to go to MIT - as much as I would love to - but with OCW, at least I can benefit from a great deal of their wisdom with some elbow grease, even without the cash.

    --
    Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
  5. Will this make other schools more competitive? by clusterix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have been through community college and umich and now live in Singapore. I can say that around the world a 4 year degree is not equal. I hope that this will encourage students to beg for better course designs and more advanced knowledge than what 90% of the world currently gets.

    I also hope that engineering faculty will seriously discuss and compare their current curriculums and bring them up to par as much as possible (with in their and their students capability).