Distinction is Given by OpenCourseWare Consortium at Annual Global Conference
IRVINE, Calif. – June 17, 2011 – John Crooks, M.F.A., lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, has been honored as a recipient of the OpenCourseWare Consortium’s (OCW Consortium) inaugural Awards for OpenCourseWare Excellence (ACE awards). Crooks’ course, titled “Introduction to Pitch Systems in Tonal Music” received the award in the video and multimedia courseware category. Recipients of the ACE awards were honored at the recent OCW Consortium global conference in Cambridge, Mass.
“UC Irvine is delighted to have one of its lecturers recognized for their contributions to the OpenCourseWare movement,” said Larry Cooperman, director of UC Irvine’s OpenCourseWare project. “OpenCourseWare initiatives around the world are creating a significant impact on the future of higher education, and through contributions such as the courses offered by John Crooks, UC Irvine can play a monumental role in creating equal, open accessibility to high quality educational materials.”
The courseware awards were selected by a committee populated from the OCW Consortium membership. All “video and multimedia” winners were recognized for the integration of substantial video and/or multimedia elements into the course. Crooks’ course offers a ten part series of video lecture/presentations covering properties of tonality and circulating pitch systems in addition to audio examples and sound visualization. The course is currently used by music students UC Irvine and was developed especially for publication via the University’s OpenCourseWare.
“I am honored to have received recognition from the OCW Consortium for my course,” said Crooks. “The site serves as a testament to UC Irvine’s commitment to the open access of educational materials, which I hope to advance through the development of additional OCW materials and courses.”
Crooks is a 2009 graduate of UC Irvine’s M.F.A. program in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology. An active bassist and composer, Crooks has used OpenCourseWare materials for his own education. In addition to his teaching work at UC Irvine he teaches innovative music technology, music theory, and ensemble courses for high school students in collaboration with the COSMOS-UCI summer program and String Project Los Angeles.
About UC Irvine’s OpenCourseWare Initiative
The University of California, Irvine was the first University of California campus–and West
Coast University–to join the OCW Consortium. UC Irvine's membership in the OCW Consortium
is consistent with its public- and land-grant missions and its desire to play a significant role
in contributing to the social welfare of the state, the nation and the world. Open educational
resources (OER) showcase the University's high quality education and makes courses and course
materials free for everyone in the world. UC Irvine's OCW is a large-scale, Web-based resource
that houses educational assets that are discoverable, searchable, modifiable, and, best of all,
free and easily available. Through the OCW movement, UC Irvine provides University-quality courses
and learning assets to populations of self-learners that are underserved and in many cases, unable
to participate in formal education at a university. This site also offers access to UC Irvine’s
online continuing education offerings. For more information about UC Irvine's OCW initiative,
visit http://open.uci.edu/, e-mail
open@uci.edu or follow us at Twitter.com/UCI_OCW
and Facebook (UC Irvine OpenCourseWare).
About the University of California, Irvine
Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities.
The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier
research, innovation, and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000
students and offers 222 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most
economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing
$5 billion annually to the local economy. For more on UCI, visit
uci.edu.