Facilitating the Integration of Open Educational Courses

Background

In ‘Winning by degrees’ McKinsey & Company, report that the United States’ post-secondary education system is not producing enough graduates to sustain its’ current economic growth (Auguste, et. al., 2010). In order to produce, the needed number of graduates the education system would need to produce approximately 23% more graduates each year. The top producing institutions are improving their degree productivity by increasing cost efficiencies. One of the five strategies these institutions employ is extensive course redesign.

McKinsey & Company described the strategies and tactics employed by the 8 of the top producing post-secondary institutions. Some of these tactics are contrary to the typical behaviors practiced and expected in four-year post-secondary institutions. For instance, Rio Salado and Western Governor’s employ a large number of part-time instructor or course mentors and centralized course development (Augueste, et., al., 2010). At four-year post-secondary institutions, the number of part-time faculty members are typical minimal and course development is traditionally left in the hands of the faculty members. Hence, many administrators are looking for other innovative ways to implement extensive course redesign. As a result of the mainstream media coverage and seemingly low cost, open educational courses seem to be a viable option. To date no institutions have integrated open educational courses into degreed program (Ackerman & Zellenr, 2012).

The open educational movement is well funded and supported. The announcement of MIT’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative in 2000 is generally considered the catalyst that spurred the open educational movement (Smith, 2009). Since MIT’s creation of the OCW Consortium, the movement has gained momentum and popularity.