Clair Maple Memorial Address: OpenCourseWare and the Emerging Global Meta University

Global connectivity via the Internet presents many challenges and opportunities for higher education. One major opportunity is the democratizing and empowering force of openly shared educational materials. Reflecting on MIT's experience to date with its OpenCourseWare initiative and related activities, this presentation envisions the rise of a global meta university.

The Clair Maple Memorial Address is the opening plenary session for the Directors Seminar, given in memory of Clair George Maple (1916-1985), one of the founding fathers of SAC. In 1963, Maple became director of the Iowa State Computation Center and served in that position until his death at SAC in 1985. He was a respected and well-loved member of the academic community, both on the Iowa State campus and nationally. Maple served on the EDUCOM board, was elected board chair in 1984, and received its Distinguished Service Award posthumously in 1985. One of his contributions-and perhaps his greatest pleasure-was to serve as a consultant and sounding board to his large circle of computing friends. He loved meeting with us, his many friends and colleagues, at professional meetings. We fondly remember him and carry his advice, counsel, and spirit with us as we continue developing information technologies for higher education.