A Wired Campus post by Jeffrey Young in The Chronicle of Higher Education highlights professor David Parry’s efforts to open up his college classroom to outside participants at the University of Texas at Dallas. As noted in the article,
Mr. Parry had already planned to make recordings of class sessions available online. But he’s now offering to hold a weekly online discussion group by video chat for those tuning in remotely as well … Those auditing the course who aren’t enrolled won’t get any credit, though. “The knowledge is free, the degree will cost you money,” he wrote.
The author of the article asks, “Have others already tried allowing outsiders into online course discussions?” A little digging reveals numerous recent examples which we have linked to in this blog, including:
- Facilitating online communities by the staff in the Educational Development Centre of Otago Polytechnic in New Zealand
- Introduction to Open Education by David Wiley through Utah State University in the United States
- EC&I 831 by Alec Couros through the University of Regina in Canada
- Connectivism and Connective Knowledge by George Siemens and Stephen Downes through the University of Manitoba in Canada
Feel free to add information about any other open classes within the comments …
One of my course “Information Technology Tools for Engineers” at http://infotechtools.ning.com is open. The course allowed guests/visitors to join in and participate with no credit for the course.
The enrolled student’s work was graded and they also received a grade.