Yale logo (public domain), Wikimedia Commons
Yale offers an extraordinary range of free courses across diverse disciplines. They are delivered by, as you would expect, famous lecturers, supported by YouTube and other resources.
Unlike Open Learning Australia, involving universities such as RMIT, Monash and Griffith, with Open Yale Courses you don’t have to pay any fees!
It’s an example that gives some reality to the dream of open learning, of a democracy of education opened up by the internet. In the last Australian federal election campaign by the Labor Party, some of that spirit was depicted in advertisements showing school classrooms dissolving into virtual libraries and museums.
But taking a course at Yale does not give you any accreditation, for that you do have to be admitted to Yale (no easy feat!).
The Yale program is one of a number of online education programs, such as the OpenCourseWare consortium and Open Educational Resources.
The OpenCourseWare consortium focuses on higher education and includes members such as MIT, Johns Hopkins, UC Irvine, University of Michigan and universities in China, Japan, Korea, Spain and South Africa. Open Educational Resources, though it does have college courses, emphasises secondary school education.
So perhaps the early dreams of an internet enlightenment live on, despite all the cyberspace junk out there.
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