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The Dartmouth
July 11, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

A Freedom of Information Act

In contrast to the Middlebury College history department's ban on Wikipedia, other institutions of higher learning have responded to the public knowledge movement more commendably. As open source information is rapidly and rightfully gaining prominence, top universities around the globe -- including MIT, the University of Tokyo, and the world's oldest engineering school, the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees -- are making their course materials freely accessible on the Internet.

Freshman Claire Murray's column sensibly warns against overeager use of such course information in college searches ("Dartmouth for Free," Feb. 26).

But the impact of public availability of course materials extends far beyond college self-promotion. The benefits this newly accessible information brings to the public domain and to higher education far outweigh any misguided college decisions it may cause. Instead, its true significance lies in increasing the accessibility and quality of knowledge.

As quoted in the Wall Street Journal in February 2007, Catherine Casserly from the William and Flore Hewlett Foundation, which has contributed over $68 million to expand the online availability of educational materials, believes that "knowledge is a public good, and a public good should be freely shared." Allowing this knowledge, which was previously available only to the small elite fortunate enough to attend top universities, to be retrieved from anywhere by anyone is the greatest advantage of the new trend.

The accessibility of information it provides extends beyond American borders, thereby spreading democracy, in education at least, around the world. Anyone with sufficient interest and access to an Internet connection can now delve into information on subjects ranging from physics to theology to public health, all of it produced by experts at institutions like Stanford, Notre Dame and Johns Hopkins.

These resources fill an important niche in the online public domain, a niche that is left empty, perhaps with the exception of invaluable user-generated content like Wikipedia. As I argued in my previous article ("Wikipedia's Worth in the Classroom," Feb. 20), the encyclopedia offers up-to-date information from a diversity of sources, but sometimes unfairly faces much skepticism due to its anonymity. The online course materials can be attributed to professional authors, and therefore have greater legitimacy.

Such shared knowledge empowers a much wider group of people to explore their interests and develop new skills in more depth and through better quality resources. Judging by the amount of money and effort our society is willing to spend on education, such free and easily accessible sources have significant potential to increase the public education level and to foster innovation.

The newly accessible course materials can also benefit institutions of higher education themselves. Professors can easily compare instructional methods of their peers across the world and gain new ideas on how to best present a subject to their students. They can freely search materials from other schools for innovative syllabi, explanations and assignments to improve the effectiveness and appeal of their lessons. High school teachers can help their students better prepare for college by following some of the latest teaching practices used at top-notch universities.

This positive impact on education brings the advantages of freely available course materials full circle. These materials may improve the quality and accessibility of academic education, possibly resulting in creation of even better publicly accessible materials. This circle of knowledge expands and improves with each participating university. Dartmouth should make its contribution to it soon.