Harvard, Stanford, Duke and Oxford universities, along with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, may all be considered among the most exclusive universities in the world, but you no longer have to be a valedictorian, an All-American athlete, the founder of a successful not-for-profit or even a high-school graduate to attend one of their classes.
Harvard is the most recent addition to the small but growing group of prestigious universities that are making some form of their course materials available to the general public, online and free of charge. The degree to which schools are opening their classrooms varies. At one extreme is MIT, which in 2001 began a 10-year, $100 million project called OpenCourseWare to publish materials for nearly all of its classes online, including course syllabi, reading lists, lecture notes, sample tests and papers, and video or audio recordings of classes. At the other end of the spectrum is Harvard, which currently only has plans to televise one of its most popular courses, along with producing companion webcasts, podcasts and an online discussion forum.
The question is whether this is the future of education whether it is a trend that Dartmouth needs to jump on immediately in order to remain at the forefront of higher learning. I am reluctant to suggest that Dartmouth should fall behind its peer institutions. However, it does not appear that the benefits of such a project, at least one on the scale of MIT's, merit the enormous costs.
The benefits that Dartmouth students and faculty would see from such an endeavor would be indirect, in the form of publicity for the College. Potential applicants might review some of the available materials and, interest piqued, be more eager to attend Dartmouth. An increased Internet presence could also increase Dartmouth's profile internationally. Both of these effects would contribute to our efforts to attract the best students from around the world. Publishing course materials would also ensure that Dartmouth was not seen as lagging behind our peers in technology and innovation.
However, I question how much learning is actually possible from the available course materials. Studying such resources is a one-sided experience. Users cannot interact with a professor to ask questions, offer their own opinions and insights, or engage in debate all of which are crucial components of education. It is hard to believe that it would be possible to master Multivariable Calculus, a course on MIT's OpenCourseWare site, without a teacher to consult. A student would have to be a very rare breed of self-starter to be able to gain anything from the available course materials. If only a highly select few can actually benefit from this project, is it really worth the $100-million price tag?
For the unique self-starters, there are already plenty of educational materials out there. To paraphrase Matt Damon's character in "Good Will Hunting," all it takes is $1.50 in late fees at the public library. But for those who are simply curious about the composition of an elite education, there are many other, more cost-effective ways for Dartmouth to promote itself.
If, however, we insist on matching the activities of our peers, regardless of whether doing so is wise and beneficial, Harvard provides the best model to follow: choose one of your school's most popular courses and go to great lengths to make it user-friendly. The course that Harvard chose, "Justice," which has been taught by Professor Michael Sandel for over 30 years, is fascinating and thought-provoking. At the same time, it is accessible to the layman. In addition, because the course is discussion-based, it showcases the insight and intelligence of Harvard students it is an impressive introduction to Harvard. The price tag is still formidable although Sandel declines to discuss the exact sum, according to The New York Times the course was financed by a grant from POM Wonderful, in addition to $600,000 raised by Sandel's former students.
No matter what, though, we should not fool ourselves into thinking that publishing course material serves any purpose but to garner publicity for the College. Course materials are given life by professors and classmates who explain, challenge, discuss and inspire. Without them, syllabi, reading lists, lecture notes, sample tests and even video lectures cannot hope to be more than the sum of their inert, lifeless parts. The spirit of a classroom cannot be packaged into downloadable PDF files. Dartmouth might gain some expensive publicity from following its peers' misguided example, but certainly no satisfaction from making learning a public good.
