Free for All: Universities Offering an Increasing Number of Free Online Courses
A growing number of college and university courses, as well as curricula and tools available for free on the web. It's not just small online universities that are providing the information. Throughout the world, hundreds of prestigious colleges and universities like Berkeley and Yale are offering free courses online.
In 2001, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) paved the path toward free online courses with its OpenCourseWare, posting entire courses — including lecture notes, videos and exams — for all to see. This past summer, the Obama administration proposed a $9 billion expenditure during the next ten years for community colleges and high schools to create free online courses that lead to actual degrees. The hope is that community colleges will be able to reach more people and facilitate basic skills education that could lead to better employment for students.
Motivation for free courses
Many people wonder why universities and colleges would put all coursework online for free. Professor Curtis J. Bonk, Ph.D., the author of The World is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education, has been observing the phenomena for some time. One reason is so that an institution can market its course material in order to attract enrollment into the physical school. Another reason, according to Bonk, is content repetition. Students can listen to lectures more than once and better solidify the learning. The easily accessible content can also be used to extend class time if some topics went untouched in class.
The rules are different for free online education. Assessments and homework are for the most part non-existent. That puts the responsibility on the student to become a responsible learner. No homework is required because there is no one to grade it. But some content discussion groups are available as well as peer review opportunities.
College for the people
The University of the People (uopeople.org), offers peer-to-peer learning with support from instructors. It charges a small fee, $10 to $100, for assessments and offers programs in computer science and business administration. The online university is dedicated to the democratization of higher education. "Education, just like democracy, should be a right, not a privilege," said Shai Reshef, founder and president of University of the People (UOP). The college's entrance fee is nominal and the website boasts a student-to-teacher ratio of five-to-one. The accreditation process keeps UOP and some other free or low-cost sites from conferring degrees of any kind. But UOP and others are in the process of navigating through the proper channels with the U.S. Dept. of Education to achieve this status.
Ed Ganong, a student at UOP has a bachelor's degree from Ohio University and now takes UOP courses in computer science online, though they don't lead to any degree. He said flexibility attracted him to online learning. "It's great to be able to sit down at the computer after my kids go to bed and study at my own pace from my desk at home," Ganong said, adding that he hopes the Internet allows for earning master's degrees for free someday. "That would be impressive to see," Ganong said. "And I'm sure it's coming."
French café
As the dawn of web-based learning picks up speed, more and more people are warming up to self-directed learning. And the sources of content are becoming more varied. Who would have connected a good cup of coffee with learning a new language? But that's what live.mocha.com does. Started by a worker in a Seattle Starbucks, the website has 2 million users all over the world learning dozens of languages at their own pace. It's free and participants can take a language or teach a language as well as team up with foreign-language partners.
The website curriki.com offers reviewed content by education experts on staff. Members share and collaborate on free and open-source curricula. Users can find lesson plans, contribute curriculum resources, and connect with other educators around the world.
Specifically targeted to higher education learners, Merlot.org, is peer-reviewed and evaluated and offers learning materials, learning exercises, and guest experts. The site presents about 22,000 submissions with about 78,000 members taking advantage of the free, shared information.
The portal, ItunesU, offers lectures from Yale, Stanford, Oxford, as well as museums and PBS offerings. Organized lectures can be downloaded directly to an iPod or iPhone. Users click on a "provider" and receive a listing of all the courses. The course page contains all related video or audio files. "Talking heads in a classroom have now become talking heads on an iPod," said Bonk. "E-learning will travel everywhere we go with our mobile devices."
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