Are online courses making inroads at elite institutions?  Ithaka S+R analyst and author, Taylor Walsh, writes this editorial in the recent Forbes online issue of “America’s Best Colleges,” examining how open courseware could be a bridge to online education at elite institutions. This editorial comes in anticipation of the forthcoming monograph, “Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities are Opening Up Access to Their Courses,” the culmination of a major study on online courseware. In this project, we have examined why and how a number of highly selective universities have made their undergraduate course materials accessible to a mass audience, and the sector-wide implications for higher education.

“Unlocking the Gates” will be published by Princeton University Press (PUP) in January 2011 and is now available for pre-order through PUP and Amazon. A digital version of the manuscript will be made openly accessible on Ithaka S+R’s website. 

For a project description, background, and detailed information on the book, please visit our project page.