MIT Math Courses Now Available Online

December 18, 2007

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has digitized the material for all of its 1,800 academic courses. The material, including a great deal of mathematics, is available online for anyone to use — at no cost.

At a celebration marking the completion of the five-year undertaking, called the "OpenCourseWare" (OCW) project, MIT President Susan Hockfield stressed that some of the subject matter, available through a new OCW high school portal, has been specifically tailored to the requirements of Advanced Placement studies. It encompasses introductory science, engineering, technology, and mathematics courses, including lecturer notes, reading lists, and exams. Resources include video-taped laboratory demonstrations and simulations, course assignments, and hands-on material.

One surprise is that two of MIT's course videos, called "classical mechanics" and "differential equations," have ranked among iTunes top 10 videos. "This expresses, to me, the hunger in this world for learning, and for good learning materials," Hockfield said.

Since 2002, when MIT first introduced a 50-course pilot project, educators, students, and "self learners" with no educational affiliation, according OCW's Steve Carson, have made use of the free academic material. An OCW Consortium of 160 institutions now creates and shares course material based on MIT's model.

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nov. 28, 2007; Network World, Nov. 29, 2007.