OCWFinder.com - OpenSource Education

You paid thousands in dollars worth of textbooks and course packets. They were either never opened, or shoddily leafed through in hopes of retaining something in the brain before the big exam. But in reality, you couldn’t remember it if you had to. This is the problem with a lot of course material these days—it’s expensive, disengaging and expensive. OpenCourseWare wants to change this. OpenCourseWare is a haven for high-quality and free educational materials. It’s a collaborative effort, with material gathered and shared from hundreds of universities around the world. Along with OpenCourseWare’s main site, there’s OpenCourseWare Finder, a search engine site for students who can search all the available courses. The left-hand side contains an alphabetized list of all subjects. The top has a search query box and below that, you have your choice of four languages. So, next time you have to buy a textbook, check OpenCourseWare first.

An OpenCourseWare is a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 100 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware.

OpenCourseWare is a fine accomplishment in higher education. It’s a worldwide effort to make quality education available to everyone and it doesn’t cost a thing. Their goal is admirable.

Is OpenCourseWare sustainable? Funding a thing like OpenCourseWare isn’t easy—how do they plan on keeping the funds coming?