The Impact of Open Source
Open Yale Courses
I looked into the Open Yale Courses
- The University started their
Open Course in December 2007
“Open Yale Courses (OYC) provides
lectures and other materials
from selected Yale College courses to the public
free of charge via the Internet. The courses span the full range of liberal
arts disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and physical and
biological sciences.” (Yale 2012)
I looked at the Foundations of
Modern Social Theory. This is one of the
Open Yale Course that is free and is an introductory course. The classes are
overseen by Yale instructors Iván Szelény. The course is set up to accommodate distance
learners. The courses are delivered by YouTube video, transcripts and allow
learners to listen to entire course through the Apple ITunes. The course videos are clear and the sound is great.
The angle of the camera made the overhead screen a little blurry however if you
put it on full screen it is much better.
The instructor prepares the class for the class by giving an overview of
what to expect with the course, from the amount of reading, to the PowerPoint
presentations to the exams. The class
offers a variety of focal points and interesting readings.
The course is well thought out and
planned. The distance learner should
have no problems following along and understanding what is expected from the
course and themselves. At the end of the
course there is an evaluation stage in the form of a seven question survey. The survey, in one’s opinion does not ask
much in a way of the course itself.
There are questions such as “Which educational materials in this course
site were most useful to you? Did you save (download) personal copies of
materials from this course?, If so, what is your primary motivation for saving
materials from this site?, How would you describe the overall learning
experience offered by this course site?, and Can you suggest any additions or
changes to this course site that would improve your learning experience?” (O.Y.C
Survey 2012) I would like to have seen more on the survey so that if I were the
instructor or the ID of the program I could make necessary improvements for the
distance learner. Just because the
course is free, does not mean that its quality cannot be improved.
This course is designed with the
recommendation for online instruction According to Simonson, Smaldino, Albright
and Zvacek, in our reading the courses offer:
1. Organizational
Guidelines
2. Unit-Module-Topic
Guidelines
3. Assessment Guidelines
4. Content Guidelines
5. Instruction/Teaching
Guidelines
These recommended guidelines are
intended to provide ways to organize courses …. With equal numbers of semester
credit equivalent in terms of in terms of comprehensiveness of content
coverage” (Simonson, p 180)
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S.
(2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education
(5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Open Yale Courses SOCY
151: FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN SOCIAL THEORY Retrieved April 2012 http://oyc.yale.edu/
Open Yale Courses SOCY 151: FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN SOCIAL
THEORY Retrieved April 2012 http://cmi2.yale.edu/phpQ/fillsurvey.php?sid=73
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