
MIT and the future of open courseware - ph0rque
http://sharing-nicely.net/2011/01/mit-and-the-future-of-open-courseware/
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brianstorms
I wish people would stop calling this stuff "courseware"; it's not courseware.
It's lectures on video, that's all. Courseware is a term invented in the late
60s to describe computer-based educational or training lessons, simulations,
programs, tutorials, quizzes, tests, and games that when taken and mastered by
a student, qualify for course credit. It's not about sitting and watching a
prof give a lecture.

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knowledgesale
What are talking about? Video lectures accompany only few of the published
courses. Much more often, it is lecture notes, homeworks, reference cites, old
exams, and solutions. Everything to "run" a course. There is no better generic
term for it than courseware.

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some1else
I submitted answers to user surveys on Yale and MIT Open CourseWare, glad to
see that they're resulting in great improvements.

I have to say I'm more inclined to detailed textbook-style information than
the social aspect. OpenStudy didn't quite manage to deliver any greater value
to me, just kept me occupied. Maybe I'll revisit now that it's out of beta and
the community had probably grown substantially.

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higglyndra
Most text books are riddled with errors. So I guess as far as content goes the
value of groups will be in correcting such errors.

(And perhaps also in _better explaining_ the material by adding notes and
linking to external content.)

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imp
Yeah, that's been happening on Curious Reef a lot (Curious Reef is my website
which is similar to OpenStudy).

Here's an example of people working through an issue in a C programming class:
[http://curiousreef.com/class/programming-
in-c/lesson/1/assgn...](http://curiousreef.com/class/programming-
in-c/lesson/1/assgn/4/). There wasn't any issue with the actual book itself,
but the discussion is adding value to others who might come across the same
problems.

