The Saylor Foundation
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| Founded | 1999 |
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| Founder | Michael J. Saylor |
| Type |
Operating private foundation (IRS exemption status): 501(c)(3) |
| Focus | Free education |
| Location | |
| Website | www |
The Saylor Foundation (under its legal name, The Constitution Foundation) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, DC. It was established in 1999 by its sole trustee, Michael J. Saylor, who is Chairman, CEO, and President of the business intelligence company MicroStrategy. Since 2008, the focus of the foundation has been its Free Education Initiative which has led to the creation of 241 courses representing 10 of the highest enrollment majors in the US. Saylor is the author of the new book, The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything, which extols the open education movement.
The Saylor Foundation is known for its emphasis on finding, vetting, and assembling openly available texts and resources into courses resembling those of a traditional brick and mortar institution which are then peer-reviewed before being published. The foundation also funds the creation of new materials when needed, as well as through initiatives such as their Open Textbook Challenge. This content is always openly licensed for use by other organizations and individuals. The foundation is currently under the direction of Amanda Antico-Majkowski.
The mission of the foundation is to make education freely available to all. Guided by the belief that technology has the potential to circumvent barriers that prevent many individuals from participating in traditional schooling models, the foundation is committed to developing and advancing inventive and effective ways of harnessing technology in order to drive the cost of education down to zero.
On its website, the foundation offers 317 free, college-level courses, which are selected as typical courses in high enrollment majors at traditional U.S. colleges. The foundation's course catalog is designed to be as open as possible, with all content accessible without needing to register or log in to the website. Their system has been described as "easy to use and straightforward" making use of a simple interface, clear directions and a visual representation of how complete course materials are.
The foundation works with consultants to design the courses. These consultants are typically university and college faculty members or subject experts. The course design process begins with a college faculty member developing a blueprint for the course. The consultant then researches open educational resources (OER) to supply the course with lectures, texts, and other resources. If suitable texts and documents are not found, the foundation works with faculty to compile new materials which it in turn releases to the OER community under a Creative Commons license. Each course is also accompanied by an assessment that learners can use both to test their knowledge and to officially demonstrate the knowledge they have gained. In the future, the foundation will begin issuing badges as a form of alternate credentialing.
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