# What Are Your Earliest Memories of MIT Open Courseware?
**URL:** https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/what-are-your-earliest-memories-of-mit-open-courseware/8901
**Category:** Interaction Zone
**Tags:** featured
**Created:** [March 31, 2026, 7:33pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/what-are-your-earliest-memories-of-mit-open-courseware/8901 "2026-03-31T19:33:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cogdog](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2026, 7:33pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/what-are-your-earliest-memories-of-mit-open-courseware/8901/1 "2026-03-31T19:33:28Z")
Next week is a _huge_ milestone celebration on campus at MIT, the 25th Anniversary of the launch of MIT OpenCourseWare, [see the event details including how to participate online](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/from-bold-idea-to-global-legacy-25-years-of-mit-opencourseware/8886).
Do you remember the first time you heard about MIT OCW? Or visited the [web site](https://ocw.mit.edu) (still at the same URL 25 years later)? Do you remember hearing about it at conferences or reading it in magazines/journals?
Please reply with any memories or first experiences with MIT OCW, as an educator or better yet, as a student. Bonus points for shared links and photos.
Inset is [MIT OpenCourseWare web site from October 14, 2002](https://web.archive.org/web/20021014163054/ocw.mit.edu/index.html) earliest snapshot from the Internet Archive atop the current web site [https://ocw.mit.edu](https://ocw.mit.edu)
Add your OCW memories as a reply below.
* * *
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### Author:  [@cogdog](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2026, 7:52pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/what-are-your-earliest-memories-of-mit-open-courseware/8901/2 "2026-03-31T19:52:18Z")
I started this topic, so I will go first 😉
I would guess the news of MIT’s 2001 announcement was shared in listservs, and I would be very confident that Stephen Downes @Downes would have published something very early; I did find [one of his posts about OCW from November 2002](https://www.downes.ca/post/31469).
In March 2005 I was fortunate to have been invited to visit MIT by Philip Long when he was there; it was quite a thrill given I came from the Maricopa Community Colleges in Arizona. I did take a few photos around campus, and did find the “office” door to OCW on the second floor od building 9!
[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/6350008/)
_[The Halls of OCW](https://flickr.com/photos/cogdog/6350008) flickr photo by [cogdogblog](https://flickr.com/people/cogdog) shared into the public domain using [Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)_
I did [find in my blog an old post that indicates later in August 2005](https://cogdogblog.com/2005/08/opencourseware-sac2005/), I got to attend the EDUCAUSE Seminars in Academic Computing meeting that was held up in the mountains of Snowmass, Colorado. In fact, my post indicates I heard the Clair Maple Address by OCW’s leader Presodent Emeritus Charles M. Vest - the title was “OpenCourseWare and the Emerging Global Meta University”
The post includes notes that colleague Cyprien Lomas (then at UBC) and I collaboratively compiled in a shared “SubEthaEdit.” Because it’s a thing I like to do, with some searching today [I was able to find a link to the abstract of talk itself](https://events.educause.edu/archives/2005/seminars-on-academic-computing-2005/proceedings/clair-maple-memorial-address-opencourseware-and-the-emerging-global-meta-university), the [full proceedings of other talks at the same conference](https://events.educause.edu/archives/2005/seminars-on-academic-computing-2005/proceedings) PLUS with more digging, I found [a recording of the talk tucked away in the Internet Archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20060918031920/http://connect.educause.edu/node/1227) that is missing from the EDUCAUSE site.
Okay, it’s your turn. Do you remember the first time you heard about MIT’s OpenCourseWare?
And also tagging in our OCW colleagues @shiras @sehansen @cjnewton (and soon Brandon) to help draw in more replies.
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### Author:  [@cjnewton](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cjnewton)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2026, 2:24pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/what-are-your-earliest-memories-of-mit-open-courseware/8901/3 "2026-04-02T14:24:59Z")
Thanks so much @cogdog for opening up this thread. I feel incredibly fortunate to have been with MIT OpenCourseWare since 2004. Around the time its first 50-course publication pilot went live in fall 2002, I was freelance writing and had done a couple of pieces for MIT Technology Review magazine. I pitched my editor there on doing a story about this awesome new project, which they rejected because they’d already assigned a staff writer to cover it. So be it. But soon thereafter I decided it was time to get a fulltime job again, and OCW’s inspiring mission was absolutely top of mind as the place I wanted to work. I definitely didn’t fit the mold for staff openings they had at the time, but persistence finally paid off. From day one working here, it’s been deeply satisfying, I think exceeding the impact of everyone’s wildest expectations, and especially gratifying to see the global open education movement keep growing in its transformative work.
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### Author:  [@cogdog](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2026, 3:01pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/what-are-your-earliest-memories-of-mit-open-courseware/8901/4 "2026-04-08T15:01:08Z")
Very much enjoying [the live stream celebration](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/from-bold-idea-to-global-legacy-25-years-of-mit-opencourseware/8886/1), Curt, eager to share the new OCW @25 video
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### Author:  [@cogdog](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2026, 8:37pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/what-are-your-earliest-memories-of-mit-open-courseware/8901/5 "2026-04-12T20:37:33Z")
Paging OEG Connect, hello? Surely some of you have memories of first encountering MIT OCW.
This weekend I was cleaning my drawer of collect-shirts and found a tank top I got on my 2005 visit.
_Photo CC by by me 😉_
Since I still own the shirt, I still am “property” (I will interpret that as “properly”!!)
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### Author:  [@cjnewton](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cjnewton)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2026, 6:27pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/what-are-your-earliest-memories-of-mit-open-courseware/8901/6 "2026-04-15T18:27:57Z")
The OCW@25 documentary is now posted on our YouTube channel
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkhSkE89KJ0)