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MIT OpenCourseWare Update: December 2006 (Delivery delayed until January 2007)
A Monthly E-mail Newsletter for Users and Friends of MIT OpenCourseWare.
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In this issue:
1. Another Milestone: Fall 2006 Publication Cycle Complete
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In November, OCW completed the fall publication cycle, with over 150 new courses and 75 updates published. This means that OCW now offers the materials for more than 1550 MIT courses. You can see the complete Master Course List, organized by department, at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/all-courses.htm. New courses in this list are marked with, ah, “NEW.” The list of updated courses is at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/OCWHelp/updatedcourses.htm.
Did you know that you can sign up for an RSS feed, sent right to your computer, listing all NEW and UPDATED courses published in the last ninety days? The list is in chronological order, most recent at the top. Go to http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/rss/new/mit-newcourses.xml to see the list, to learn more about RSS feeds, and to subscribe.
2. Video and Audio Courses
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As resources permit, we continue to add video and audio materials to OCW. As of November, 22 courses have complete series of lectures (609 lectures in all). Many other courses have video elements (over 1200 video files all together). Some courses are available in audio format, and we are now posting audio-only versions of video courses as we produce them. For links to all our video and audio courses, go to http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/OCWHelp/avocw.htm.
3. MIT Teaches That?
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Not all MIT courses are techie! Across MIT’s 35 world-class departments in five different schools, there are many interesting course subjects that may surprise--and delight--you: This month’s feature is 4.615 The Architecture of Cairo:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Architecture/4-615Spring2002/CourseHome/index.htm
This was one of our early classes on OCW, and it contains extensive image galleries of Cairene architecture. Most of the images were taken by Professor Nasser Rabbat, who is a native of Cairo. He's been teaching classes on Islamic architecture at MIT for 15 years.
4. OCW Consortium News
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The OCW Consortium (OCWC) is an alliance of over 100 institutions providing (or developing) their own OCW web sites. At last count, there are about 3000 courses, in many languages, offered across the Consortium. The OCW Consortium web site is your portal to this vast resource.
The next OCWC conference will be held in Santander, Spain on May 2-3, 2007, graciously hosted by Universia. Accredited universities interested in establishing their own OCW sites are welcome to attend. Look for more information on this event in early February on the OCWC web site.
5. Brain Teaser
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OCW course 18.S34 Problem Solving Seminar, Fall 2004, is chock full of challenges. Here’s one of them:
Everyone knows how to cut a wheel (cylinder) of cheese into eight identical wedges with four straight cuts. Can you do this with only three straight cuts, and if so, how? If you’re not a whiz at cheese problems, you can get the answer by going to the 18.S34 course home page and clicking on “answer” under the image. While you’re there, learn more about problem solving techniques!
6. Your Gift Sustains OCW Long-Term
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In offering free and open access to MIT courses, the MIT faculty are giving their educational materials to the world. But maintaining these courses, and evolving MIT OCW to meet the needs of our diverse user audience, has its costs. Thus, we depend on the generosity of users to sustain the MIT OCW project long term. We now offer a quick link to the Donating to MIT OCW section on every page on the MIT OCW Web site. Look for the following button at the top of every page:
Hit this button, and you will find that giving your gift to MIT OCW is easy, and that the Giving to MIT Web site is a safe and secure way to financially support MIT OCW. MIT OCW will always be a free and open digital publication, however, your $50, $100, or $500 donation will enable us to continue to offer a high-quality publication of MIT's course materials.