By the way, I would have summarized the MERLOT model somewhat differently than what you have on slide 21 [from Stephen Downes]. My own take is that MERLOT’s early success was through alignment with Strategic Initiatives for the institutions who supported faculty involvement. I think this is generally true for initiatives to advance teaching and learning: there is not a lot of interest at the political level in the quality of teaching and learning, but we can garner support for OER and parallel advances by linking to strategic priorities which already have significant attention (e.g., access for specific groups, addressing pressing workforce needs, developing key 21st century competencies, etc.). This speaks directly to the Rewards dimension on p. 25. More about this in our article in the Opening Up Education book .

I also wondered about the characterization of MIT OCW as Produser/Consumer…I would probably use Colonial as the label…

Tom

The link to the videos of the keynotes actually came through a tweet, but don’t seem to be on the website. Here is the link that worked for me: http://www.avacast.nl/icde2009/archive.php .