Hal Abelson
Class of 1922 Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Vijay Kumar
Assistant Provost & Director of Academic Computing
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ann Wolpert
Director of Libraries
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has launched two interrelated and ambitious institutional programs that have the potential to transform higher education on a number of dimensions. The Open Courseware Initiative (OCW) seeks to make MIT course materials available world-wide, without charge, via the Internet. The Dspace Initiative is a project to build a multidisciplinary, durable digital repository that will persistently store and disseminate faculty educational and research material. These are transformative efforts from many perspectives. They speak to the way that the institution and its faculty think about their teaching and research materials, about the way this relates to publication and intellectual property, the relationship between the institution and the world (including developing nations), and what characterizes the unique value of a particular educational institution. This session will enable attendees to follow up with questions and discussion following the plenary presentation.