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IRVINE, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 03/11/13 -- The University of California, Irvine (UCI) today announced the launch of Open Chemistry ("UCI OpenChem"), the most comprehensive chemistry curriculum ever offered online at no cost to students, self-learners and others worldwide. Developed as part of UCI's commitment to fostering learning globally through a collaborative effort of the UCI School of Physical Sciences and UCI OpenCourseWare, UCI OpenChem provides free and open access to 15 quarter-length undergraduate and select graduate chemistry video lectures. UCI OpenChem was the brainchild of Chemistry Professor James Nowick, Ph.D., whose three classes of Organic Chemistry lectures have been viewed thousands of times and have earned praise from students around the world. By releasing the full path of study as OpenCourseWare, UCI contributes its world-class resources in chemistry to advance the study of on-demand STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) subjects.

"Making knowledge open to the entire world is a wonderful result of the World Wide Web," said Marshall S. Smith, Under Secretary of Education for former Pres. Bill Clinton and a recent senior counselor to current U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. "UCI has taken the next big step in this direction by presenting their entire undergraduate chemistry curriculum in an open format. This is a wonderful gift from a superb institution in the world's greatest university system."

UCI OpenChem Is a Significant Milestone for UCI and the Open Education Movement

UCI OpenChem is the latest open education initiative that gives significant opportunities to educators, students and self-learners, who may otherwise be excluded from high-quality higher education. Since its initial participation in OpenCourseWare, UC Irvine has provided 90 individual courses and hundreds of video lectures online for free.

"The UCI Department of Chemistry has broken new ground by allowing students to follow a coherent and integrated pathway toward full mastery of undergraduate chemistry," said Gary W. Matkin, Ph.D., dean of Continuing Education, Distance Learning and Summer Session at UC Irvine. "This is the first time that students and professors can find a complete undergraduate major in a consistent and high quality video format on a single website."

A leader in the open education movement since 2006, UCI has coordinated the launch of this program with the OpenCourseWare Consortium's educationweek.org%2f">Open Education Week, March 11 - 15. The week-long celebration aims to raise awareness for the open education movement and of open educational resources.