Both Asia and Boston have long been powerhouses of the open education community, so it’s no surprise to see that both Asia and Boston feature prominently in the new members of the xConsortium.
Japan, China and Korea all have significant active OCW efforts and open educational resources–especially videotaped lectures–draw huge audiences in Asia through sites like 163.com.  One of the new members of the xConsortium, Kyoto University, is a founding member of the Japan OpenCourseWare Consortium and hosted the global OpenCourseWare Consortium‘s annual meeting in 2006.
With the addition of Boston University and Berklee College of Music, the xConsortium now includes five Boston-area universities (MIT, Harvard and Wellesley being the others), reinforcing Boston’s leadership position in open and online learning.  Boston is also home to prominent OCW sites at MIT (of course), Tufts, and UMass Boston.
Here’s the full list:

  • The University of Hong Kong (China)
  • Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (China)
  • Kyoto University (Japan)
  • Peking University (China)
  • Seoul National University
  • Tsinghua University (China)
  • Karolinksa Institutet (Sweden)
  • Universite catholique de Louvain (Belgium)
  • Technische Universitat Munchen (Germany)
  • The University of of Queensland (Australia)
  • Berklee College of Music (US)
  • Boston University (US)
  • Cornell University (US)
  • Davidson College (US)
  • University of Washington (US)

Congratulations to edX on the expansion!