About
Universite Populaire/Open Popular University advocates self-learning, life-long learning and open learning. Open Popular University provides open educational resources (OER) in different fields of study at the university level. These resources are also complemented by other types of resources. Open Popular University is in its development stage and has several goals to reach. For contact, contribution to the development of Open Popular University and suggestions click the contact page link above. If you are interested in supporting this work financially go to the donation page link on the side bar.
Mission
Learning is a natural need of humans. It is a process that helps to survival. Unfortunately for the vast majority of people the acquisition of learning materials is a luxury and the access to higher education is very limited due to high educational costs. Thousands of educational materials in the form of courses, books, articles, journals,videos, podcasts, etc, are freely available through the internet thanks to many universities, Open Educational Resources (OER) organizations and educational institutions throughout the world. There is an existing need of developing, organizing, translating these materials and creating new ones. The use of these materials especially the courses is multiple. Professors and instructors can use them to develop the courses they teach. Students studying in brick and mortar and online universities can use them to review or supplement their own materials. Former graduate students and professionals can use these materials for review. Self-learners can use them for their own benefit. Open degrees are used by many professionals to satisfy their personal and professional needs. An experiment is being held for an open and networked PhD. Educators design a common framework at Peer-to-Peer University and their own learning plan to meet the requirements of this framework. Open Popular University dedicated a section of its programs to Open degrees. Learners can always design their own degree study program using educational resources and web 2.0 technologies and non-traditional credentials.
The mission of the Open Popular University/Universite Populaire is to help people who want to learn by themselves by providing them resources and tools for this matter. Open Popular University wants to encourage everybody to consider himself/herself as the center of the learning process. It advocates for self-learning, lifelong learning, the use of web and electronic resources, physical and human resources for learning. Physical resources and human resources are books, libraries, conversations and groups. Electronic resources include radio, television, computers and mobile telecommunications devices. Open Popular University is not limited to a geographical location but considers itself as a reference for universal learning. The only requirements to participate to the movement of Open Popular University are to be able to read, write and have a certain level of computer literacy. Based on this philosophy Open Popular University addresses itself to anybody eager to learn. Its materials are for any one eager to learn including students, professionals, educators, self-learners and lifelong learners. The resources of Open Popular University will not be limited to the higher education level. They will embrace all levels of the formal education and the informal education. Open Popular University is not a center of learning considering the traditional role of the educational learning centers but an educational movement for the emancipation of the humankind. Open Popular University will reserve a place for Haitian students whose access to educational materials is very limited. Academic courses at Open Popular University are organized according to the curriculum of renowned universities and students can study using the materials by themselves or in study groups. These groups can be human or virtual. One of the virtual groups is the Open Study group.