Open Access Journals and Open Learning

When we talk about open source, normally we will think of computer applications that comes with the tag "freeware" or "open development". With the recent development in the Public Domain and Free Culture Movement initiatives, more and more open access materials are made available to the world. While it’s available for free, most materials are licensed under Creative Commons, in which some rights of the materials are reserved (e.g. redistribution without acknowledgment). You can use, reuse and remix legally for as long as your shown recognition to the original author and abide to the stated rights. One of those materials are journals and online courses. There are now a growing number of institutions that offers free access to vast learning resources for various fields. Below are some popular examples of such "freebies":

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

If you’re looking for open access journals, then you should bookmark DOAJ. Its service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. Open access Journals allow you to to "read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles" and all journals listed are peer-reviewed. 

Educational Open Access Journals

Run by American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group (AERA SIG), this webpage provides lists of open access journals in the field of education.

MIT OpenCourseware – Free Online Course Materials 

MIT OpenCourseWare is a free publication of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT. MIT OpenCourseware is part of the Open Courseware Consortium. What can you expect more than getting access to course materials of one of the leading universities in the world! By the way, the term "Courseware" is not confined to the limited understanding of CD-ROM-based materials (as most Malaysians would accept).

Open Learning Initiatives – Free E-learning Courses

Funded by the Hewlett Foundations, Open Learning Initiatives is run by Carnegie Mellon University. The OLI websites offers free access to e-learning courses and materials.

Wikiversity – The Mother of Educational Wikis

You might have heard of Wikipedia but not Wikiversity.  Wikiversity is a wiki-based learning community. Over at Wikiversity, you can utilize online courses and also create courses yourself. The goal is to create a community of people who support each other in their educational endeavors.

Well, happy exploring and do support Open Learning!