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The MIT OpenCourseWare Update: June 2004

A Monthly E-mail Newsletter for Users

and Friends of MIT OpenCourseWare

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The June 2004 MIT OpenCourseWare Update Contains:

1. 21st Century Achievement Awards

2. Improving MIT OCW Learning Communities

3. Digging Deeper: Course 5.301

4. A Frequently Asked Question

5. Comments

6. Newsletter Available Online at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/AboutOCW/newsletter.htm

1. 21st Century Achievement Awards

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MIT and Sapient Corp., the Cambridge, MA-based business consulting and technology services firm that helped MIT build the OpenCourseWare Web site, were jointly honored as the worldwide winner of the prestigious Computerworld 21st Century Achievement Award in Education and Academia during a ceremony held June 7 in Washington, D.C. MIT and Sapient were selected by the Computerworld Honors Foundation for their work to develop MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW), which was named as the best application of IT in the field of education. Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft, originally nominated MIT and Sapient as a Computerworld Laureate in recognition of MIT OCW's contribution to the global information technology revolution and its positive impact on society.

"Recipients of the Computerworld Honors 21st Century Achievement Awards represent those organizations whose use of information technology has been especially noteworthy for the originality of its conception, the breadth of its vision, and the significance of its benefit to society," said Daniel Morrow, Executive Director of the Computerworld Honors Program.

This year's awards, in 10 categories, were presented at a gala event at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., and were attended by over 500 guests, including leaders of the information technology industry, scholars, and diplomats representing more than 50 countries. The 2004 collection of Laureates includes innovative applications of technology from 36 U.S. states and 26 countries. MIT Professor Dick K.P. Yue, whose "Course 13.021: Marine Hydrodynamics" is available on MIT OCW, accepted the award with Mike Detjen of Sapient Corp.

"We are extremely honored to be recognized with Sapient for our role in promoting education through technology," said Anne H. Margulies, Executive Director of MIT OCW. "Since the launch of our proof-of-concept pilot in fall 2003, the MIT OCW Web site has received traffic from users in more than 215 countries, city-states and territories, making it a truly global initiative. Our partnership with Sapient enabled us to provide a reliable and user-friendly site for educators and learners around the world, and it is a wonderful honor to be jointly recognized with Sapient by the prestigious Computerworld Honors program."

A panel of distinguished judges selected the winning applications based on originality of conception, breadth of vision, and significance to society. A case study on MIT OCW has been archived in the 2004 Computerworld Honors Collection. Additional information about the 2004 collection of Laureates is available at http://www.cwheroes.org, where the entire collection is available to scholars, researchers, and the general public.

2. Improving MIT OCW Learning Communities

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MIT OCW has embarked on a pilot research project with the Open Sustainable Learning Opportunities (OSLO) Research Group at Utah State University. Seven MIT OCW courses now offer links to learning communities where individuals around the world can connect with each other, collaborate, form study groups, and receive support for their use of MIT OCW materials in formal and informal educational settings. These links appear in the left-hand navigation of the following MIT OCW courses:

This joint MIT OCW/Utah State University research project, called Open Learning Support (OLS) is focused on building "social software" that enables informal learning communities to form around existing open educational content. The OSLO Research Group is committed to supporting OLS users in their efforts to learn using MIT OCW materials. Based on feedback from early users of the pilot communities, some new features have recently been added to OLS, including:

To see an example of one of these pilot learning communities, connect to the pilot learning community for "Course 18.06: Linear Algebra" now.

3. Digging Deeper: Course 15.667

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Each month, this newsletter offers subscribers an in-depth guide to one particular subject. This month, we delve into "Course 15.667: Negotiation and Conflict Management," a course from the Sloan School of Management taught by Professor Mary Rowe.

Course 15.667 presents negotiation theory -- strategies and styles -- within an employment context. In addition to the theory and exercises presented in class, students practice negotiating with role-playing simulations that cover a range of topics. Students also learn how to negotiate in difficult situations, which include abrasiveness, racism, sexism, whistle-blowing, and emergencies. The course covers conflict management as a first party and as a third party. Third-party skills include helping others deal directly with their conflicts, mediation, investigation, arbitration, and helping the system change as a result of a dispute.

The MIT OCW site for "Negotiation and Conflct Management," includes a wealth of resources for anyone interested in teaching or learning about negotiation. The Lecture Notes section includes full instructions for role-play simulations, and class exercises with discussion questions and instructor's notes. The most essential handouts and ideas from the course have been assembled into a packet called Negotiation 101. In addition, a list of useful books on negotiations and conflict management is included in the Related Resources section for those who would like to learn more about some of the topics in this class.

4. A Frequently Asked Question

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QUESTION: How do I find what courses are available?

ANSWER: MIT OCW offers the educational materials from 701 MIT courses. There are three ways to access the materials: Utilize the Search function that can be found in the left-hand corner of every page on the MIT OCW site. Search for specific text, such as certain academic discipline area, across all courses or within just one course. To perform a detailed search, use our Advanced Search.

A second way to see what courses are available is to click on Course List  that is listed in the top right-corner navigation of every page on the MIT OCW Web site. This will allow you to view the list of every available course, grouped into the 33 MIT academic departments.

Or, view the courses currently available grouped by MIT department. The departments that have MIT OCW course sites available are listed in the left-hand navigation bar of the MIT OCW homepage. An example would be the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Click on the Aeronautics and Astronautics link in the left navigation bar on the MIT OCW homepage, and you will go to the department page, which includes a complete list of MIT Aero/Astro courses offered, along with a brief description of the department and its curriculum goals.

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MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) is a large-scale, Web-based publishing initiative with the goal of providing free, searchable access to MIT course materials for educators, students, and individual learners around the world. These materials are offered in a single, searchable structure spanning all of MIT's academic disciplines, and include uniform metadata about the contents of the individual subject sites.

"The MIT OpenCourseWare Update" welcomes your feedback and suggestions about this newsletter and the MIT OCW Web site. Please send your feedback to Jon Paul Potts, MIT OCW Communications Manager, at jpotts@mit.edu.

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