The Online Persian College of Contemporary Art, Scient, and Humanities is an online service that will provide free courses and educational material to Persian-speaking people in developing countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. Subject matters will cover areas that are usually not available to high school and junior college student in these countries, but available to their peers in the west.
The service will not (at least in short-middle term) provide tests or degrees. The purpose is to provide a rich and up-to-date library with modern content for those who would like to learn. Current trends on social networking sites and blogosphere show that people in Iran and other similar countries are very active in sharing content if they find good digital material.
These courses are presented in Persian, and the content is digital only. The courses will be in the form of video, MP3 audio, and PDF books. Unlike youtube videos, The audio and video content can be downloaded, so that students don’t have to rely on continuous access to the Internet to be able to use the courses.
The OPC infrastructure will make the content usable on not only computers but mobile phones. People in Iran and developing countries are already using mobile phones for digital content, so the high penetration of mobile phones makes delivery and sharing easier.
Last but not least, OPC will create a micro-volunteering platform for Iranians and Persian-speaking individuals in the west to contribute by translating and submitting text for the English content. Just as Wikipedia is the result of crowd-sourcing knowledge, OPC will crowd-source translation.
OPC is currently in the early planning phase. If you would like to learn more about the progress of OPC, or if you can help, please contact us at info {@} persiancollege {dot} org.
Thank you for visiting OPC!