KNEXT Sponsors OpenCourseWare Consortium Global Meeting

KNEXT, a college credit advisory service, was pleased to sponsor the OpenCourseWare Consortium Global Meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As an advocate of lifelong learning, KNEXT supports the invaluable learning that OpenCourseWare provides worldwide.

OpenCourseWare refers to the free and open digital publication of university-level educational materials. OpenCourseWare is often organized as a course and includes planning materials, content and evaluation tools. OpenCourseWare is free and openly licensed—available to anyone with access to the Internet.

Linking together content from universities such as MIT, University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the OpenCourseWare Consortium is a community with more than 250 universities and organizations worldwide. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is committed to advancing the idea of affordable, educational and culturally appropriate ways to gain desired knowledge or training.

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s College Completion Tool Kit (March 2011), 50 percent of all new jobs in the next decade will require a postsecondary degree, Yet, more than 97 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 64 do not have a college degree. Providing affordable, flexible education options to experienced members of the workforce with little or no college credits is an important way to address the U.S.’s long-term unemployment and underemployment challenges.

KNEXT and members of the OpenCourseWare Consortium share the belief that learning can happen anywhere. The mission of KNEXT is to establish a path for adult students to utilize prior-learning assessment services that translate real-world and self-directed learning into college credit.

“We’re truly inspired by the way OpenCourseWare is changing the world of education,” says Brian Ouellette, general manager of KNEXT. “Our commitment to adult learning at KNEXT is made possible by some of the groundbreaking steps that OpenCourseWare has taken in the past ten years.”

Celebrating ten years of OpenCourseWare’s making a difference in education; the OpenCourseWare Consortium Global Meeting brings together leaders in education from around the world. The conference will focus on the impact, production and future of OpenCourseWare.

KNEXT, an independently run subsidiary of Kaplan Higher Education, is a college credit advisory service that helps individuals translate prior learning into college credit. The company is composed of experienced educators and professionals committed to promoting, growing and furthering education. Offering a variety of online programs, KNEXT seeks to help adult students in their pursuit of postsecondary education. For information about KNEXT, its Learning Recognition Courses, Evaluators, Advisors and more, visit http://www.knext.com.