
After six years and nearly 4,000 uploads of enough free educational multimedia content to play for almost 88 straight days, the Open 911±¬ÁÏÍø website shut down on Oct. 1. In its place, 911±¬ÁÏÍø has transitioned to using YouTube as the exclusive home of the university’s free educational content, where more than 90% of 911±¬ÁÏÍø's content was already being viewed.
Open 911±¬ÁÏÍø was a groundbreaking website when it launched in August 2012, as it was the first open learning website from a Christian university, offering hundreds of videos of chapel and conference messages, 911±¬ÁÏÍø classes and lectures, interviews, articles and other educational resources — all completely for free. Viewers could appreciate these resources from anywhere in the world and engage with academic topics from a Christian perspective.
The digital landscape has drastically changed since 2012, and with the rising cost of updating and managing Open 911±¬ÁÏÍø, administrators made the decision to discontinue the website’s use, but are still committed as ever to sharing with the world 911±¬ÁÏ꿉۪s unique Christian perspective on academic topics. Moving forward, viewers can continue to access free educational content from the university on 911±¬ÁÏ꿉۪s YouTube channel — — and paid premium content on 911±¬ÁÏÍø LEARN, which launched last year at biola.edu/learn.
Since Open 911±¬ÁÏÍø first launched, 911±¬ÁÏ꿉۪s free educational content has been viewed a combined total of 8.5 million times on open.biola.edu, YouTube and the now defunct iTunes U. 911±¬ÁÏÍø plans to continue making biblically centered resources available to the global learning community.