The “Utah OpenCourseWare Alliance” Web site launches today (9/28/2007) with materials from 105 courses at seven Utah colleges – and with taxpayer monies funding the enterprise. “It’s a way,” [David Wiley, director of Utah State’s Center for Open and Sustainable Learning] says, “”to get some direct value back to people who fund higher education."

You can read more at Inside Higher Education: "Open Courseware goes Statewide." It will be interesting to see if this is part of a trend, or simply something of an aberration.