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The MIT OpenCourseWare Update: August 2004

A Monthly E-mail Newsletter for Users

and Friends of MIT OpenCourseWare

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The August 2004 MIT OpenCourseWare Update Contains:

1. New Courses Now Available

2. Upcoming MIT OCW Presentations

3. Digging Deeper: Course 8.224

4. A Frequently Asked Question

5. Comments

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

1. New Courses Now Available

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Over the course of the summer, MIT OpenCourseWare will employ a "rolling" publication schedule, releasing batches of new courses to the Web site at http://ocw.mit.edu on a weekly basis, leading to the publication of 200 new courses by September 15. This milestone will mark the halfway point as MIT OCW works toward the publication of virtually all of MIT's courses by the year 2008. This month, we are pleased to offer the course materials from 12 new MIT subjects, including:

MIT OCW will continue to publish new courses every week through September 15. For a complete list of all course offerings, visit the complete course list.

2. Upcoming MIT OCW Presentations

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Educators and learners interested in finding out more about MIT OCW are encouraged to attend several upcoming educational and information technology conferences. Various members of the MIT OCW staff will attend these events and would welcome meeting users of the materials available on the MIT OCW Web site.

On Wednesday, September 1, Jon Paul Potts, the MIT OCW Communications Manager, will speak at the 16th annual Instructional Technology Institute at Utah State University in Logan, UT.

In October, MIT OCW staff will be speaking at the EDUCAUSE 2004 Conference in Denver, CO. On Thursday, October 21, Potts will speak on "The Impact of Open Sharing: MIT OpenCourseWare," at 11:45 am, and at 4:55 pm, MIT OCW staff will host a poster session and would be glad to meet with anyone who has questions about the MIT OCW project.

Anne H. Margulies, the Executive Director of the MIT OCW project, will be joined by members of the MIT faculty at the China Open Resources for Education (CORE) International Forum 2004, to be held September 1-4 in Shanghai. This international conference will explore open course resources sharing, management, and technology for effective utilization and enhancement of education. For information on this event, or to discover more about CORE, visit http://www.njtu.edu.cn/jg/jgws/content/core.htm

MIT OCW staff will also be speaking in Japan this fall. Farnaz Haghseta, the External Outreach Coordinator for the MIT OCW project, will be speaking at the 2004 NIME International Symposium. This event, to be held at Japan's National Institute of Multimedia Education in Mihama-ku, Chiba-shi, Japan, will take place November 17-18.

3. Digging Deeper: Course 8.224

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Can I see a black hole at all? If I can see it, what does a black hole look like? Does it look black? What does it feel like to fall toward a black hole? Each month, this newsletter offers subscribers an in-depth guide to one particular subject, and this month, we delve into Professors Edmund Berthschinger and Edwin Taylor's Course 8.224 -- Exploring Black Holes: General Relativity and Astrophysics, from MIT's Department of Physics.

Professor Bertschinger is a theoretical astrophysicist who serves as head of MIT's Division of Astrophysics. His research is focused in cosmology and relativistic astrophysics, and Exploring Black Holes is one of three courses available from Professor Bertschinger on MIT OCW, the other two being Course 8.942 -- Cosmology and Course 8.962 -- General Relativity. Professor Taylor is a Senior Research Scientist Emeritus at MIT.

Course 8.224 investigates the questions of the cosmos using elementary calculus. The course homepage features a beautiful image taken by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, as presented on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day Web site. The course site includes Assignments, Exams, and a description of the end-of-term collaborative research project that MIT students enrolled in the course must complete.

The Lecture Notes for this course include slides, PDFs, and/or videos for each of the seminar sessions, covering topics such as "The Universe: Questions You Were Afraid to Ask," "Supermassive Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy -- Sagittarius A*," and "Cosmic Structure Formation: From Inflation to Galaxies."

MIT OCW users are advised to check out MIT Professor Robert Jaffe's Course 8.20 -- Introduction to Special Relativity as a prerequisite for Course 8.224. Professor Jaffe's MIT OCW Web site introduces users to the basic ideas and equations of Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, and will help them to better understand the subject matter of Exploring Black Holes.

4. A Frequently Asked Question

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QUESTION: I have seen (or I am/represent) an individual, organization, or institution that offers to teach MIT courses or tutor students based on MIT materials. Does MIT approve or recognize such individuals or organizations?

ANSWER: No, MIT has no relationship with, grants no special permission to, and does not approve, endorse, or certify any organizations, teachers, tutors, or other service providers who use educational materials available on the MIT OCW Web site in connection with their services. Except for students admitted to MIT and enrolled at the Institute, MIT does not authorize the granting of any kind of degree, certificate, or other recognition for participation in or completion of any course of study based on or using published MIT course materials.

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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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