USQ first Australian member of OCW Consortium
The University of Southern Queensland (USQ) has joined a highly reputable and progressive collective, becoming the first Australian member of the OpenCourseWare (OCW) Consortium. Established in 2003, the OCW Consortium is a collaboration of more than 100 higher education institutions and associated organisations around the world committed to advancing education and empowering people worldwide through opencourseware. As part of the membership, Consortium universities must digitally publish at least 10 high-quality courses, including syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams, for free on the OCW Consortium website. Professor Jim Taylor, an internationally renowned expert in e-Learning and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Global Learning Services at USQ, said the membership is a significant milestone for the University. 'Through our membership in the OCW Consortium, USQ is openly committing itself to the concept of intellectual philanthropy and encouraging and enabling the pursuit of lifelong learning to online students around the globe.' Current OCW Consortium members include Utah State University, Beijing Normal University, University of Tokyo, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, and Universidad de Monterrey in Mexico. 'Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) initiated the OCW Consortium and aims to publish materials from its 1,800 courses on the website by November this year. 'Their very successful website currently receives traffic from virtually every country on earth and receives around 1.5 million visits per month. 'Visitors to the MIT site include educators (17 percent), students (32 percent) and a huge audience defined as ‘self learners’ (49 percent),' Professor Taylor said. OpenCourseWare Consortium Director, John Dehlin from MIT, congratulated USQ on its membership. 'We could not be more pleased to have the USQ join us as members of the OCW Consortium. 'USQ has shown great leadership in the fields of Instructional and Educational Technology for as long as I've been in the industry, and their newly released OCW site does not disappoint in the slightest. 'Their OCW courses are rich and comprehensive, and their contribution to the OCW library represents another step forward as we try to raise the bar on the quality and value of OCW course content to the world. Congratulations again to USQ!' Media are welcome to attend the launch of the USQ’s OpenCourseWare Initiative. WHAT: Launch of USQ's OpenCourseWare Initiative Media Contact: Amy Cass, USQ Media, +61 7 4631 2092 or +61 412 097 326 
|
