Useful observations about open courses - which I confess fit my prejudices - but seem better informed. Glad to see positive comments on UK Open University - I did my BA there - and it transformed my mind. Wonderful institution.

 

Open Courses done right: Saylor Foundation

Existing approaches to course-based OER

There are generally two approaches to course-based “big OER” (institutional OER projects, as opposed to resources released by individual professors or others). The first is the MIT OpenCourseWare approach (which has been replicated by universities across the US, and the world). Given that professors are already developing a set of materials to be used in their face-to-face teaching, let’s grab these and upload to the web. The result is a curriculum, maybe some PowerPoints, sometimes lecture recordings, some quiz sheets, etc. From the perspective of self-learners, this is rarely enough material. Only a fraction of all..... (more at http://reganmian.net/blog/2011/03/25/open-course-done-right-saylor-foundation/ )