Higher education institutions are experiencing a period of profound change as a result of the networked environment and the changing competitive landscape both across institutions and across nations. It is understandable that the institutional response has varied tremendously. One significant movement in this space over the course of the last decade has been the accelerating development of the open courseware movement, in which course-related materials from syllabi and lecture notes to readings and lecture videos are posted openly on the web. Growing out of a Hewlett- and Mellon-funded initiative at MIT and having been considered in one way or another at hundreds of institutions, this movement has now firmly taken hold at numerous universities across the world. Ithaka’s research project will examine this movement – its development, its success factors, its impact, and its future.