Introduction to Open Course Ware
OCW is part of the basic teaching improvement plan of NCTU College of Science for academic year 2006. It focuses on 3 important subjects that link high school education and specialized university courses - physics, chemistry and calculus. We then further expand each course to incorporate all the requisite concepts of every science and engineering department, leading to an elaborate content and a flexible learning network.
With a view to encouraging active learning and performing our social duty, NCTU has combined and opened to everyone its excellent education resources. Professors and students bearing specialties are grouped into remarkable teams. They initiate and share taught courses via websites. We now first offer courses on 3 basic science subjects – calculus, physics and chemistry, including the course syllabus, handouts, relevant web links, videos shot live the classroom, assignments and grading information, and related resources necessary for self-learning. NCTU students, other students and self-educators can thus follow our schedule to search for, watch, or download learning materials of each course at anytime, anywhere, for free and without boundaries, making self-learning and advancement.
In addition to calculus, physics and chemistry, Open Course Ware plans to successively offer extended courses that are most widely taught to students in science and engineering departments, and that comprise the core of NCTU’s departments of applied mathematics, electro-physics and applied chemistry. If basic courses can go public and be promoted, it will facilitate our students’ study as well as draw for high school students a clear picture of rudimentary university courses. It will also benefit every department in curriculum articulation and the design of teaching materials.
In the future, we plan to build an interactive learning mode based on the most difficult concepts or chapters of calculus, physics and chemistry. This will be arranged according to units of study. When students encounter more complicated concepts, interactive learning enables repetitive self-practice as well. Students can organize concepts they’ve learned before going deeper, so that these concepts can be further clarified. If many times of practice still leaves some questions, OCW also provides forums for sharing and exchanging learning experience.
