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SoFIA Releases First 8 Open Content Courses

Sofia (Sharing of Free Intellectual Assets) intends to do for the community college level what MIT's Open Courseware offers for upper division courses- free, open content courses you can use in whole or part. Free with Creative Commons licensing. The first 8 courses are available from their gallery:

The pilot grant open content initiative, Sofia (Sharing of Free Intellectual Assets), was initiated in March of 2004 under the leadership of Vivian 'Vivie' Sinou, Dean of Distance & Mediated Learning at Foothill College. "Open" content refers to material that is freely available for use by faculty, students, and self-learners.

The Sofia finalists include the following content contributed by faculty from five California Community Colleges: Creative Typography, by Carolyn Brown, Foothill College; Introduction to Java Programming, Steven Gilbert, Orange Coast College; Elementary Statistics, by Susan Dean and Barbara Illowsky, De Anza College; Physical Geography, by Allison Lenkeit, Foothill College; Musicianship, by Don Megill and Dave Megill, Mira Costa College; Enterprise Network Security, by Sukhjit Singh, De Anza College and Mike Murphy, Foothill College; Web Page Authoring, Jo Anne Howell, Gavilan College; and Macromedia Flash, by Marcia Ganeles, Foothill College.

I just skimmed Web Page Authoring and found it clean, comprehensive, with not just content, but assignments, exams, and discussion areas.

Are these "learning objects"? "course objects?" Who cares what you call it, it's good stuff... and it is free.

Keep an eye on SoFIA, she's a looking gooooooood...