The Free Open Web-University

Wilhelm von Humboldt: True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united.

The free open university of Wilhelm von Humboldt of the 19th century, originating from the Enlightenment leading into the liberal arts education of our time, was in the second half of the 20th century replaced by the non-free closed university with the students locked into fixed educational programs characterized by ownership and control:

• universities own and control educational programs
• educational programs own and control courses, teachers and students
• teachers own and control students in classrooms through text books
• texts books own and control student minds by exercises and problems preparing for exam.

The program ownership generates income to the university, because students (or the state) pay and the control secures that students get prepared to pass exams, which is required to cash the money.

This non-free closed university is today troubled by decreasing enrollment and/or examination, and is now also challenged by the web-university as the modern form of Humboldt's free open university.

The web-university is run by the best scientists giving their science for free to free students owned by nobody. University bureaucrats have good reasons to be worried...