In the Living Room with Open Education Network & MIT OpenCourseWare

At Open Education Week 2025, the Open Education Network (OEN) and MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) are partnering to discuss two open educational resources as a way to highlight their respective collections. The March 7 online event, In the Living Room with the Open Education Network and MIT OpenCourseWare – Two Highlighted Resources, will feature one open textbook from the OEN’s Open Textbook Library and one example of an open course offered by MIT OCW.

“We thought, what better way to highlight our online collections and shared goals than through a spotlighting of two recent resources across our platforms,” said Shira Segal, MIT OCW Collaborations and Engagement Manager. “Our hope is that this Open Education Week event can explain our publication process and highlight some of the people involved in making these resources available.”

Karen Lauritsen, Senior Director, Publishing, Open Education Network concurs. “We’re excited to come together and share stories about creating and sharing OER,” Karen said. “By profiling these two resources, we highlight the depth and breadth of what is openly available as well as the thoughtful and dedicated people behind the resources.”




Image: Cheryl Siegel with AI via Canva.com

MIT OCW’s presentation will highlight Data Analysis for Social Scientists, one of more than 2,500 MIT courses within their extensive collections. Through OCW, self-guided online learners can explore MIT course content in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, as well as humanities, social sciences, fine arts, biology, literature, world history, legal studies, psychology, architectural design, and many more topics - in essence, MIT’s entire undergraduate and graduate curricula.

Each of these course publications, including Data Analysis for Social Scientists by Prof. Esther Duflo and Dr. Sara Ellison, is freely available online for anyone to access, download, modify, remix, and reuse.

“We believe in the power of shared knowledge to help transform the lives of learners around the world,” said Shira. “It is also our aim to connect learners with one another and to find ways to support – and learn from – the open education ecosystem at large.”

“We are especially excited by Data Analysis for Social Scientists because of its modular, week-by-week structure, the fact that it is team-taught between two phenomenal professors – one of whom is a Nobel laureate – and it also includes a Chalk Radio podcast with the instructors,” said Shira.

OCW course publications typically offer diverse features to support learning. In this case, learners can access the podcast as well as instructor insights, course syllabus, calendar, lecture videos, homework, and a comprehensive review.

Cheryl Siegel, MIT OCW Publication Manager and Social Media Coordinator, served as the primary contact for the faculty who designed and co-taught the Data Analysis for Social Scientists course. As someone deeply involved in the course publication process, Cheryl says she finds it rewarding to hear stories of how people are using and benefiting from OpenCourseWare.

“There are learners who are displaced from their homes, learners who are ill and not able to attend school, high-achieving high school students who need more advanced classes…the stories really run the gamut,” Cheryl said. “Knowing that the work we do helps so many people around the world makes coming to work every day such a pleasure.”

The Open Education Network will highlight Accessible Appalachia: An Open-Access Introduction to Appalachian Studies, a recently published open textbook by Lisa Day and Jacob Johnson. The book appears in the OEN’s Open Textbook Library, a collection of more than 1,600 openly licensed textbooks that are available to download, edit, and distribute at no cost. 

Karen Lauritsen, OEN Senior Director, Publishing, invited Bailey Lake, Open Strategies Librarian at Eastern Kentucky University (EKU), to talk about the publication since she thinks it may be one of the first of its kind in the open educational landscape. 

Published by EKU in 2024, Accessible Appalachia is a collection of essays written by a diverse group of Appalachian authors. Each of the nineteen chapters addresses specific regional issues, historical or current, with a personal perspective. Chapters include Native American Cultures of Appalachia, The Making of Appalachian Music, Social Justice in Appalachia, and The Great Society in the Mountains: Shaping Appalachia through the 1960s and Beyond.

A recent 5-star faculty review posted to the OTL calls it “a multimedia experience that allows the voices of Appalachian residents to resonate powerfully. This emphasis on personal narratives brings authenticity to the academic discourse, illustrating the lived experience of those within the region.”

Bailey sees her experience preparing the book for publication as a learning opportunity – one she’d like to share. “The content was excellent,” she said. “It was the copy editing and reference details that required a ton of work.” 

There were a few people from the Eastern Kentucky Libraries team who were already members of the OEN’s Manifold and Ketty Communities, two pilot groups experimenting with tools for publishing OER. Bailey joined them, and found herself learning about the Manifold publishing platform to prepare Accessible Appalachia for publication. At first, she “didn’t get along” with Manifold, but has nothing but praise for Manifold these days.

“My inexperience, combined with interesting circumstances surrounding the text, certainly made this OER an adventure,” Bailey said. “We persevered, and each hurdle that we overcame taught me more about the process of OER publishing. I am so proud of the product we ended up with, and so glad to have been a part of making this information freely available to the world. Only OER could have made this possible.”

Bailey and others on the EKU Libraries publishing team leveraged OEN support and resources to get their OER out into the world. “They’re engaged members of our community,” said Karen. “They’re dedicated to bringing this, and other openly available publications to life, and are quick to give back by sharing their time and experience with others.” 

The OEN and MIT OCW are looking forward to the upcoming OE Week discussion, welcoming guests to a “casual conversation that feels cozy and rooted in camaraderie,” as Shira puts it. She believes our collaborative work is just getting started, a view that Karen shares.

“We share a vision that everyone can access educational materials to transform their lives,” Karen said. “And we will continue exploring ways that we can work together to contribute to that vision.”

Join us for In the Living Room with the Open Education Network and MIT OpenCourseWare – Two Highlighted Resources at 10 a.m. CST on Friday, March 7, 2025. Visit the OE Week calendar to learn more and register.