Dear MIT President Reif,
I am writing to explore possible collaboration ideas between MIT and World University and School (WUaS). WUaS is developing an on-line, free-to-users’ university and already has a few students. In the next few years, we hope to expand from English into the official or main languages of about 200 major countries. Ultimately, we hope to be able to provide courses in all 7,117 living languages as wiki schools for teaching and learning. What makes us different then is two things: the courses and degrees are now and will remain free to the user and they will become available in any language.
For your information, WUaS contains two legal entities: a 501(c)3 federal nonprofit entity that is a nonprofit in the state of California, and a for-profit general stock company registered in the state of California. The latter is designed to generate funds to support the former, as described in https://
The main reason for directing this message to you is that many of the on-line courses we make use of were developed by MITx or MIT Open Course Ware under the creative commons 4.0 standard. This means that anyone else, including WUaS and any other part of MIT, is “free to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform and build upon)” the material. Your support of WUaS would likely increase the rate at which such courses are being developed and the range of disciplines that they cover.
Another reason for directing this message to you is that Larry Viehland (MIT ’69) is the Chair of the Board of WUaS.
In terms of what MIT would get from this, see these 15 planned WUaS revenue streams: https://
What would WUaS get from this? We would be able to grow further and matriculate our second online undergraduate class this autumn. We would also be able to begin the licensing process with the state of California's Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (and then concurrently, accreditation with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges).
Please let me know your thoughts about this.
Sincerely, Scott MacLeod
--
- Scott MacLeod - Founder, President & Professor
- World University and School
- 415 480 4577
- CC World University and School - like CC Wikipedia with best STEM-centric CC OpenCourseWare - incorporated as a nonprofit university and school in California, and is a U.S. 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt educational organization.
*
...