September 13, 2006
Contact: Dr. David Wiley (435) 797-7562, [david dot wiley at usu dot edu]
Writer: Morgan Bramble, 435-797-1350 [mbramble at cc dot usu dot edu]

UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY-BASED COSL TO HOST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON “OPEN EDUCATION”

LOGAN- Some of the leading proponents of “open education” will be assembled at the international conference titled “Open Education 2006: Community, Culture, and Content,” Sept. 27-29. The conference, being hosted by the Utah State University-based Center for Open and Sustainable Learning, is a multidisciplinary even designed to promote discussion about educational opportunities to those who currently go without.

The conference focuses on social, cultural and technical aspects of open education. Information about the conference program, including registration information, is available online at http://cosl.usu.edu/conferences/opened2006/.

“We’ll hear about everything from intellectual property law to youth-managed resource centers in Nepal, said Dr David Wiley, the Director of the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning. “And one of our keynote speakers, Rex Allen, will talk about the impact the LDS Church‘s Perpetual Education Fund is having in the developing world. We have an excellent program lined up this year.”

Presenters include representatives of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, as well as university initiatives from all over Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

“‘Open education’ is an effort to extend educational opportunity to everyone and it is steadily growing around the world,” said Dr. Wiley. “Literally hundreds of open education projects are springing up from Tokyo to Boston to Paris to Beijing.”

Over 2500 completely free university courses are now available through OpenCourseWare projects alone (see http://ocwconsortium.org/). Utah State University’s own OpenCourseWare initiative (http://ocw.usu.edu/) provides free community access to over 40 courses.

Dr. Wiley said Utah State University-based COSL believes that all human beings are endowed with a capacity to learn, improve, progress and that free and open access to educational opportunity is a basic human right.

COSL carries out research, development, implementation, and service initiatives that strive to make educational opportunity freely available to all who desire it. Part of the Department of Instructional Technology in Utah State University’s College of Education and Human Services, COSL projects are currently funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

The convention will present the latest and most up-to-date information about today’s open education environment by offering concurrent session spanning three days. Speakers from MIT, the flagship college in the open education forum, will join speakers from other universities publishing their courses including Utah State, Johns Hopkins and Tufts.

For more information look online at www.cosl.usu.edu.