Coursetexts is a free, open library of Harvard course notes.
We would love to include your notes!
Check out what a course page looks like!
Email us at coursetexts@mit.edu.
Why Coursetexts?
Your notes help education keep pace with progress.
The average OCW course, while comprehensive, dates back to 2008. Computer science textbooks are old and prohibitively expensive. Your notes help make current knowledge available to all students.
Your notes contain unique, hard-to-find knowledge.
We’ll paint an example. We’ve scoured the Internet for notes on graduate electrodynamics and the math of MRI machines, but they’re near impossible to find. In the words of a Harvard researcher:
I’m a brain-computer interfaces researcher now, but when I was in high school and doing research in MRI, and I was looking *everywhere* for material on the physics of MRI.I watched every course I could find but they were targeted towards medical students, so they would only tell you how MRI works at a very high level. Years later, when I got to Harvard, I took this class that finally told me how MRIs work, and there were these incredible lecture notes available! But the notes were not public; the knowledge was only accessible in this class.I would have done anything to have had these notes available in high school.
We want to thank you for teaching!
You put in hours — no, years — into your courses. As students, we want to appreciate your effort toward helping us learn and grow! If you’re interested, we’ll send you a compilation of thank-yous written by students who use your notes each year.
FAQ
Who’s the Coursetexts team?
We’re a group of volunteer MIT and Harvard students passionate about educational access and open source! We grew up teaching ourselves computer science and now we want to give back 💛. You can see more of our vision here and donate to our nonprofit here. Thanks to Michael Nielsen and the Institute for their generous grant funding, as well as Professors Lawrence Lessig and Peter Suber for their advisorship.
How much work do I have to do?
Zero, zilch, nix, nada! (Unless you insist.) We’ll put up your course notes within a week, triple check your page is perfectly polished, and send you the final product for your ok before we publish.
What if I want to update my notes?
You’ll be able to easily add and remove any material from your courses! If you want us to make the change, just let us know and we’ll make your requested changes within 48 hours.