CAMBRIDGE, MA, March 2, 2012 – MathWorks has joined Dow Chemical and Lockheed Martin as a founding member of MIT OpenCourseWare's Next Decade Alliance. Next Decade Alliance sponsors make significant multi-year commitments supporting MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), MIT's effort to share the core academic materials—including syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams—from all of MIT's courses. The materials are made freely available on the web under open licenses that permit reuse, modification and redistribution of the content for non-profit purposes.
Since OCW's launch in 2002, the program has shared materials from more than 2,100 MIT courses, including video recordings of the complete lectures from 50 classes, through the OCW site. OCW has distributed 290 copies of the site on hard drives to universities in bandwidth constrained regions, and translation partners have created more than 1,000 translated versions of OCW courses. In the past decade, OCW materials have been accessed by 125 million educators and learners worldwide.
"MathWorks and MIT have a long history together and we are very pleased to enter the latest chapter of this relationship," says MIT Provost L. Rafeal Reif. "The Next Decade Alliance will provide OCW the resources to build on its past success and innovate in bringing educational opportunities to the world."
In the next ten years, OCW is poised to explore the rapidly expanding world of open education. Though a series of initiatives supported by the Next Decade Alliance, MIT will push forward in expanding the reach of OCW materials, explore how OCW content can be shaped to meet the needs of specific audiences, experiment with a broader open education ecosystem including online communities, and work with teachers to bring OCW content into more classrooms.
"MathWorks is proud to play a role in broadening access to education, and in exploring the possibilities of the web in improving the lives of millions around the world," says MathWorks CEO Jack Little, an MIT graduate. "This is an effort we feel is truly worthy of MathWorks' sustained support."
MathWorks is the leading developer of mathematical computing software. MATLAB®, the language of technical computing, is a programming environment for algorithm development, data analysis, visualization, and numeric computation. Simulink® is a graphical environment for simulation and Model-Based Design of multidomain dynamic and embedded systems. Engineers and scientists worldwide rely on these product families to accelerate the pace of discovery, innovation, and development in automotive, aerospace, electronics, financial services, biotech-pharmaceutical, and other industries. MathWorks products are also fundamental teaching and research tools in the world’s universities and learning institutions. Founded in 1984, MathWorks employs more than 2200 people in 15 countries, with headquarters in Natick, Massachusetts, USA. For additional information, visit http://www.mathworks.com.
MATLAB® and Simulink® are registered trademarks of The MathWorks, Inc. See http://www.mathworks.com/trademarks for a list of additional trademarks. Other product or brand names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
MIT OpenCourseWare makes the materials used in the teaching of substantially all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate courses—more than 2,000 in all—available on the Web, free of charge, to any user in the world. OCW receives an average of 1.5 million web site visits per month from more than 215 countries and territories worldwide. To date, more than 125 million individuals have accessed OCW materials.
Contact:
Stephen Carson
External Relations Director
MIT OpenCourseWare
617-253-1250
scarson@mit.edu
