Open Education is a pathway to share course content and intellectual property with the larger educational community at not cost.

Two of these sites are:
MIT Open Courseware
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

Merlot
http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm

These materials are free to use. The only stipulation is a citation of the source.

Building web pages offline can be simple provided you have the right tools.

Here is a list of free software that you may download and use to create web pages and course content for online courses.

http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/htmleditors.shtml#wysiwyg

By using free open source software and the files they create are less apt to have copyright problems than proprietary software such as Word.

Per our Policy and Procedures each online or hybrid course must be vetted through a Peer Review process. We have adopted the Quality Matter Rubric as our measure and approval of course to be taught online.

Documents used to assess course readiness:
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Quality Matters Underlying Principles
The Quality Matters Rubric

Each online course will be reviewed and approved by a Peer Review Panel before being placed on OLC's course schedule. This panel is a group of four colleagues. They are: the course designer, content expert, Department Chair and Distance Learning Coordinator.

OLC's online and hybrid platform will be Moodle.

And the LORD said: Thou shalt not let a day pass in which thou dost not perform thy backups. But the people were foolish and very full of themselves, and they were prodigal and did not do their backups.

And lo and behold, there came a great crash and the DISK OF LIFE was wiped clean. And then the foolish people did rend their clothes, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. And they prayed for the restoration of the disk, and made great offerings of gold with their lamentations.

BUT IT WAS ALL IN VAIN!!!!

Please remember to periodically back up your course materials on Moodle, etc. Then, after the backup is created, move the backup file to a secure location such as your local hard drive.