Reasonable people will raise legitimate concerns about launching an
OpenCourseWare effort. In the list below, we provide a selection of
frequently cited concerns, along with some suggestions for how you
might respond to them. Ultimately, the benefits of OpenCourseWare far
outweigh the concerns, and the OpenCourseWare Consortium is here to
help us all work around the obstacles that arise. If you have a concern
that you don't see addressed here, check out the OCWC Forum.
Attendance - "My students won't come to
class if the lectures are online" is the form in which this concern is
most often expressed. The goal in responding to this concern is to
encourage faculty reflection on effective teaching methods. Putting
lectures online enables faculty to treat the lectures as part of a
student's preparation for class. This allows students to spend in-class
time actively engaging the course content. If faculty explain this at
the beginning of the academic term, students will come to class.
Cost - There are ways to build an OCW project
to fit budgets of many sizes. Much depends on the number of courses an
institution intends to publish at what rate, what pre-existing
resources can be shared with the OCW project, and how (and by whom) the
flow of work is directed. In thinking about the cost of OCW, however,
it is important not to lose sight of the institutional benefits and OCW
project attracts. Acquiring many of these benefits by means other than
OCW would require a similar, and often greater, investment of time,
money and effort.
Drain on Faculty Time - While it
is not unheard of for faculty to prepare their own courses for OCW
publication, projects generally employ staff or students to vet
materials for Intellectual Property issues and to format them for
online use. This leaves the faculty member in the role of consultant:
answering questions and reviewing the prepared course prior to
publication. OCW processes may inspire faculty to spend more time
improving their courses. Such improvements are part of a faculty
member's teaching responsibilities, however, and thus should count as a
benefit of OCW rather than a burden.
Erosion of Distance Education Revenue - Institutions
with Distance Learning Programs often are justly concerned that
providing free versions of their courses online will discourage
students from enrolling for credit. What we have found, however, is
that OCW sites provide students with an important pathway into
for-credit coursework
Faculty Resistance to Sharing - Often,
faculty members and academic leaders regard their primary course
materials as the "crown jewels" of the instructional program – the
essence of what they offer to students, the products that generate
tuition revenues, and the substance of what they publish in textbooks.
Having a core group of supportive faculty can go a long way towards
demonstrating to the reluctant that the value of course materials
actually increases as those materials are given away.
Intellectual Property - Addressing
Intellectual Policy issues is complicated, but it often is more a
matter of good record keeping than anything, and a number of tools are
in development to help streamline the process. Many more people are
willing to share their third-party content than might be apparent at
first, and many are thrilled to get the exposure.
Undermining Potential Publication for Profit - Most
faculty are realistic about their likelihood of making much in the way
of royalties from their published works. That being said, as long as
for-profit publication remains a significant part of the tenure and
promotion process, faculty will be concerned about undermining their
efforts to secure such publication. Fortunately there is evidence that
OCW publication in fact promotes the sale of related faculty
publications, as it both widens the market for those publications,
increases name recognition and demonstrates uses to which those
publications might be put in the classroom.
