Open Content
Open Content
To get a glimpse of the power of open content, visit the [[Wikipedia]] and the [[MIT OpenCourseWare]] initiative.
The former is a volunteer effort, an encyclopedia on the Web developed by a core of two or three thousand people that covers topics as diverse as the birth of the cosmos and the SARS epidemic. Not only is the content freely available, it is eminently changeable. You can edit and update any Wikipedia page (except the home page). Try it.
The latter is developed by MIT professors, who decided that putting their syllabi, class notes and software simulations in the world freely would make great materials available in places and to people who might otherwise never see them, might attract excellent students from around the world and wouldn't harm MIT's ability to teach. You can't change the courseware the way you can a Wikipedia entry, but the effect is just as powerful.
Open Content is one form of [[Openness]].
