UC Irvine OpenCourseWare

Founded in 1965, The University of California, Irvine combines the strengths of a major research university with the bounty of an incomparable Southern California location. Over four remarkable decades, UCI has become internationally recognized for efforts that are improving lives through research and discovery, fostering excellence in scholarship and teaching, and engaging and enriching the community.

UCI is among the fastest-growing campuses in the UC system. Increasingly a first-choice campus for students, UCI attracts record numbers of undergraduate applications each year and admits freshmen with highly competitive academic profiles. UCI is a center for quality education and is consistently ranked among the nation’s best universities. Achievements in the sciences, arts, humanities, medicine, and management have garnered top 50 national rankings for more than 40 academic programs. Three UCI researchers have won Nobel Prizes—two in chemistry and one in physics.

The University launched its OpenCourseWare initiative in November 2006. As the first West Coast university and UC campus to join the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC), our OCW project is growing rapidly with the addition of nearly10 new courses every month. Many of our OCW offerings are directed at working adults seeking continuing education, with the option to enroll in instructor-led, for-credit courses, related to the OCW content. Our OCW initiative is supported partly by funding from extra-mural sponsors like the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation—funding that has allowed for the development of OCW created specifically or targeted audiences such as California public school teachers seeking help in passing state examinations for single-subject science and mathematics credentials. In addition, our OCW Web site also provides students and self learners around the globe with access to UCI-faculty created undergraduate and graduate courses that are currently being taught to matriculated UCI students.