UC Irvine News Brief: UCI's OpenCourseWare initiative wins wide-ranging recognition

UCI recently received the 2011 Award for Institutions from the Open Educational Quality Initiative, acknowledging its outstanding open education resources. Just five years after launching its OpenCourseWare initiative – which makes high-quality, university-level courses available for free online – UCI has captured five prestigious awards. “Colleges and universities worldwide are increasingly recognizing the benefits of providing free and open educational resources for students, teachers, self-learners, businesses, governments and other organizations anywhere in the world,” said Gary W. Matkin, the campus’s dean of continuing education, distance learning and summer session. “This international recognition honors UCI’s contribution to open education.” Also last year, the university won the Internet Marketing Association’s award for best website content and the National University Technology Network’s Distance Education Innovation Award. UCI physics professor Michael Dennin’s course “Science from Superheroes to Global Warming” garnered Education-Portal.com’s OCW People’s Choice Award for best user experience, and lecturer John Crooks’ class “Introduction to Pitch Systems in Tonal Music” received the OpenCourseWare Consortium’s inaugural award for excellence in the video and multimedia category.