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Welcome to iBerry - The Academic PortholeOpen access for learners and educators to Higher Education (HE) resources and Open Courseware (OCW) from the Universities and Colleges of the world.iBerry also brings you the latest HE, Educational Technology and Open Educational Resources (OER) newsfeeds and the OCW2 Project. You do not need to register (see Registration FAQ) to use these facilities or post comments but if you register (create an account) you can view the profiles of other users and contact them if you wish. Privacy Statement
A plea for comments on Open Courseware - and some other issues.A number of issues concerning iBerry - feedback is always welcome!
What IS Open Courseware (OCW) anyway - and how can the online learner best find it?As far as iBerry is concerned the term, 'Open Courseware' (OCW), simply refers to courseware made openly accessible on the web by any institution or individual. OCW includes the impressively large collection of course materials published by the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC) and subject to Creative Commons Licenses. Today's OCW is unlikely to be offered in the traditional sense of instructor-led packages with access to experts, fellow students, formal exams and certification. That's usually for paying customers only whereas OCW is typically a byproduct of a traditional course, providing some subset of lecture notes, assignments, slides, images, practice exams, videoed lectures etc. and published in a static form with little possibility for learner interaction. Featured Open CoursewareFrom time to time iBerry intends to feature examples of the best Open Courseware (OCW). Rather than attempting authoritative reviews of content the focus will be on why a particular OCW item is considered notable from the point of view of the online learner. Anyone is welcome to contribute or suggest some really first-class OCW (Comment below or contact iBerry) Anthropology of Religion (Utah State University)Outline - Prof Crapo presents a theoretical analysis of religion as a cultural phenomenon exploring the functional relationships between religion, culture, society, and the individual.
Feedback Please !Feedback on any aspect of iBerry's activities is always appreciated but the following issues are central in the evolution of this Academic Porthole and constructive comment on these is particularly welcome. Mixing and Mashing - More Self-Help for the Online Learner
Online Learners of the World Unite !
Has the information you've taken from The Academic Porthole been useful?As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others we should be glad of
an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously. — Benjamin Franklin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Good ! - now here's your chance to give something back!What you can do to help . . . . . . in rough order of difficulty or time commitment. You don't even need to register to do most of this!
You do not have sufficient privileges to view this pageNot a few "Open Courseware (OCW)" sites present the would-be user with the type of message shown above, or the equivalent in the form of login boxes and other restrictions preventing full access to course materials. No doubt the reasons are many and varied, ranging from marketing ploys that supposedly encourage (paying) students to sign up, to plain errors in website design. There's so much OCW out there now isn't it time to restrict the term to courseware that really is open and complete, at least as far as the major educational content is concerned? There are grey areas of course but now, in 2010, surely basic OCW should come with typed lecture notes and/or videoed lectures and if assignments, projects and quizzes and exams (particularly with solutions!) are thrown in too, then so much the better. Maybe by 2020 we would expect a lot more but at present even stalwart OCW creators such as MIT OpenCourseWare don't always live up to basic standards and much of what goes under the OCW banner is of little immediate use to many online learners.
Registered Users - some new developmentsAs promised in 'Plans for 2010' we are making make it easier for users to create accounts and flag their requirements as Registered Users. If you have already registered please check your profile and revise it if necessary as some changes have been made to the layout. iBerry does not go out of its way to encourage visitors to become Registered Users (see Registration FAQ) and we have absolutely no wish to create a closed community but it can be rewarding to have your profile accessible to other Registered Users in order to find people with similar interests ("peer-matching") or perhaps for professional reasons. If you register you can edit your profile at any time and it will be available for at least a year after your last login. You are free to make contact with others, or not, and without revealing private email addresses. There is no system of 'friends', 'followers', 'pokes' or advertising!
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