OpenCourseWare looks counter-intuitive in a market driven world. It goes against the grain of current material values. It is innovative. There is an incredible idealism in this faculty. We are providing our core materials that are the infrastructure that undergirds an MIT education.
Real education requires interaction, the interaction that is part of American teaching.
We think that OpenCourseWare will make it possible for faculty here and elsewhere to concentrate even more on the actual process of teaching, on the interactions between faculty and students that are the real core of learning. It is clear to me that revenue-generating opportunities are there, for example, for professionals learning about new developments in their field. There's the possibility of developing courses in the humanities or the arts, for example, for retirees or for people who have wanted to go back to school for a long time. A lot of opportunities are out there to make money. As for the likely role of other universities, President Vest emphasized the idealism behind OpenCourseWare.