Finding a global audience

Professor Charles Stewart III, MIT Department of Political Science

Professor Charles Stewart III, head of the Department of Political Science in MIT's School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, is a specialist in the fields of American politics and behavior, political institutions, and research methodology.

Stewart, who has long been a proponent both of using technology as a teaching aid, and also of free and open access to ideas, was an early fan of the OpenCourseWare (OCW) concept. And now that the concept has become a reality, he has become a strong advocate for the site. "I think that OCW serves the higher purposes that have been touted for it," Stewart explains. "It really does provide opportunities for people around the world to see what we do at MIT, and perhaps learn from it. There are heartwarming stories of faculty, out in the middle of nowhere, who somehow get to the OCW site, and discover our stuff, and use it to teach classes. I think that's really important and valuable."

In addition to these global benefits, Stewart has found that OCW can provide important exposure for young faculty members in his department – and across MIT.

"I think the opportunities include getting your name associated with a particular subject area," Stewart elaborates. "After all, for faculty at MIT, one of the things you're supposed to do is establish that you are one of the world's preeminent experts in a particular field. And OCW is a way of highlighting what you do, and how you do it. It gives you a broader audience than just purely an academic audience. It gives you a lay audience from around the world."

In the early days of OCW, Stewart often found that he had to defend OCW to his peers on the MIT faculty who were uncertain about what all this public exposure might mean. More recently, however, he has found that most members of his department are eager to participate.

"These days, all I really do to promote OCW is encourage them to participate whenever there's a call for new material," Stewart explains. "And by now it's gotten such a good reputation that I don't even need to do that very explicitly!"