History

The Monterey Institute for Technology and Education was founded in August 2003. The founders of MITE (pronounced “mighty”), all with many years of experience in educational software development, teaching, and publishing, engaged in extensive business planning during 2002 and 2003 to address the lack of high-quality high school and higher education content available on the Internet. The research and analysis strongly suggested that a non-profit entity acting as a facilitator between academia, business, and government could solve the problem, and so MITE was formed.

The research and analysis of 2002-2003 also resulted in a rudimentary business plan for the creation of the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC). This plan included several assumptions about the product characteristics, market readiness, and revenue models that were central to the plan’s successful implementation. In August 2003, a planning grant to gather data and test those assumptions was awarded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The six-month project resulted in a confirmation of the validity of many plan assumptions and the need for modification of others. One of the central accomplishments of the planning project was the launch of the Online Course Evaluation Project (OCEP), an effort to identify and evaluate the currently available online education content. OCEP has continued for four years and to date, more than 400 developers and their courses have been reviewed, and over 100 courses have been given a full evaluation. The OCEP results are available for public use at the EduTools web site.

    Following the planning project, NROC Phases 1 and 2 were also funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The three-year project resulted in the following accomplishments:
  • the creation of the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC), a library of more than 30 high-quality, one-semester high-school, Advanced Placement and college courses that interoperate with Blackboard/WebCT, Moodle, and most other widely used CMS ,
  • the establishment of the NROC Network, a community of academic institutions that use, maintain, and develop NROC content,
  • the creation of HippoCampus, an Open Educational Resource (OER) website for high school and college teachers and students that presents NROC content as a teaching tool, and for homework help and study,
  • the development of a network of OER websites and charitable organizations that make NROC content available to student and instructors worldwide,
  • and revenue generation making the project 40% breakeven for its annual cost of operations.

Supported by a grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

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