The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002 launched its OpenCourseWare site and eventually uploaded materials for all of the university's 1,950 courses, said Steve Carson, external relations director for MIT OpenCourseWare. Thirty classes offer video.
It cost about $30 million - all but $5 million funded by outside sources. The university spends about $3.6 million a year to maintain it, some of which also is funded from the outside.
The site's popularity has grown. In 2009, 15 million watched courses, up from 4.5 million five years earlier, he said. About 42 percent are students at other schools, 9 percent educators, and the rest "self learners," he said.
The project has boosted relations with universities worldwide, improved teaching as professors evaluated themselves, strengthened ties with students and alumni, and helped with recruiting, Carson said.
"About half of our incoming students said they have looked at the site," with many reporting it influenced their choice, Carson said.
As more universities around the world began asking for help to do the same, the nonprofit OpenCourseWare Consortium was created that now includes about 13,000 free courses from more than 200 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world.
Twenty-two are in the United States, including the University of California at Berkeley, University of Michigan, Tufts, Notre Dame, and Johns Hopkins.
Professors say the project has been rewarding to them and a public service.
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