MIT OpenCourseWare is a free and open collection of material from thousands of MIT courses, covering the entire MIT curriculum.
Knowledge is your reward. Use OCW to guide your own life-long learning, or to teach others. MIT does not offer credit or certification to users of OCW – and asks for nothing in return.
No enrollment or registration. Freely browse and use OCW materials at your own pace. There's no signup, and no start or end dates.
Made for sharing. Download files for later. Send to friends and colleagues. Modify, remix, and reuse (just remember to cite OCW as the source.)
More emerging knowledge about the world’s biggest challenges, such as improving equity, tackling climate change, and building the future of computing and artificial intelligence.
More dynamic media like video lectures, podcasts, interactive assessments, and new forms like augmented and virtual reality.
More inspiring examples of MIT's "mind, hand, and heart" approach that deeply engages learners and teachers in real-world problems.
More support for educators teaching with Open Educational Resources (OER), adapting and remixing OCW content to maximize cultural relevance for their students.
More collaborations across the OER ecosystem, working together to advance educational equity through open content and practices.
While OCW is most known for free course materials, there’s more to OCW than just syllabi, lecture videos, notes and problem assignments from MIT classes.
The OCW Educator project shares teaching inspirations from MIT faculty for colleagues at the Institute and around the world.
Educators start hereMany OCW courses include an “Instructor Insights” section for practicing teachers, covering topics such as course design, active learning methods, and strategies to engage learners.
Find courses with Instructor InsightsListen to OCW wherever you go. On this podcast, meet the instructors behind some of MIT’s most interesting courses, from nuclear physics to film appreciation to ethical responsibilities of computing.
OCW includes a growing collection of free open textbooks, perfect for educators to use and adapt in their teaching, and for all learners to guide their studies.
Explore Open Textbooks on OCWThese free online MIT courses feature sequences of short videos with auto-graded assessments for instant feedback. Like OCW, the Open Learning Library is always open for self-guided learning, and does not include live support, discussion forums, or certificates of completion.
Explore Open Learning Library coursesIn 2001, the age of digital sharing was just getting started. Google was still in its infancy. January of that year saw the launch of a little project called Wikipedia. And then, in the springtime, MIT presented OpenCourseWare.
The idea for OCW came from MIT faculty: to give away MITs course materials to the world online. The decision to move forward with this bold idea belonged to MIT's 15th president, Chuck Vest. Institute leaders could not have known it at the time, but in creating OCW, MIT launched a quiet but profound educational revolution. It unleashed the global open sharing movement, helping to pave the way for the worldwide phenomenon of open digital learning.
In its first 20 years, OCW has offered hundreds of millions of individuals a new pathway to their future—a true gift to humanity. But in those same 20 years, OCW has helped society prepare for the challenges of its future, too.
Consider the vaccines for Covid-19. They may appear to be an overnight success, but the truth is, this “medical miracle” sprang from careful, deliberate scientific research—over decades. In the same way, society responded to the pandemic emergency with a rapid and radical shift to remote learning. That shift occurred in a matter of weeks, but what made it possible was two decades of transformative work in digital learning. From the beginning of that long, transformative journey, OCW has been a guiding light.
If you ask MIT people to name those moments when they felt most proud of the Institute, the birth of OCW is right at the top of the list. That is a wonderful legacy and an inspiring challenge, for the next twenty years and beyond.
Sincerely,
L. Rafael Reif
March 2021