Our class readings placed a lot of emphasis on sustainability of OCW and OER. Interestingly, this wasn't just about providing new content, there was a great deal involved with financial issues.
I hadn't given the cost of OCW or OER much thought. But the quality of knowledge, the methods used to store content on the web and the infrastructure costs can be much larger than I'd assumed. This is a distinction between volunteer-type Web 2.0 sites. Sites like MIT's are genuine knowledge repositories with all the functionality of commercial web sites. This sites and others like it don't just gather quantities of knowledge and place it in a folder for the user to sort out. Instead there is design in how this is done. Really good OER sites can cost well into $000,000,000 to develop and maintain. This is big business!
I don't have answers for how this can be maintained from a revenue standpoint. We've read about a number of different models, foundations, host organizations, subscriptions, etc.
But I think once the word really gets out to the value and learning capability of sites like MIT, use of the sites will be so significant that revenue will find a way. I think lack of visibility for OCW and OER is one of its biggest constraints.
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