The Open World Learning Institute seeks to provide anytime, anywhere access to high quality learning opportunities. To accomplish this goal, OWL is creating a working model of a financially sustainable Open Education Center (analog) and Portal (digital) that can be reproduced or franchised to different communities. The key to success is twofold: (1) determine what works in meeting clients' needs for both Center and Portal operations, and (2) determine a successful strategy for generating operational revenue. The aim is to create vibrant places of learning capable of generating high-quality, local content without the need for charitable funding to sustain operations; nevertheless, to sustain startup operations, charitable funding is required.

Here, we have identified what we believe are valuable community and market services and products that can serve as the core package to be offered by each center; only the “OWLab” is specific to the parent center:

1. Overview