Carnegie Mellon University has been awarded $4 million to build on its Open Learning Initiative, which provides free online instruction, and start the Community College Open Learning Initiative.

The combined grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation for Education and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation were announced today.

CMU will create a partnership with faculty at community colleges nationwide to create open "gate-keeper" courses as a way to help community college students. Gate-keeper courses are the entry-level courses students must pass to get to the next level.

CMU President Jared Cohon said the program "holds real promise for increasing student success in community colleges."

"OLI is an example of what Carnegie Mellon does best: linking different disciplines -- in this case, cognitive psychology, human-computer interaction, design and computer science -- to have an impact on solving difficult problems," Dr. Cohon said.

The open online courses available from OLI are built on learning science research and provide teachers and students with continuous feedback. The courses are available at http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning.

"The power in these courses comes from the assessment component that is embedded in every instructional activity," said Candace Thille, OLI director. "This keeps teachers in tune with how students are learning and provides students with a way to assess their learning and receive immediate feedback."

First Published: December 15, 2009, 10:30 p.m.