Auditing Classes at M.I.T., on the Web and Free
By CAREY GOLDBERG
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 3 - Other universities may be striving to market their courses to the Internet masses in hopes of dot-com wealth. But the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has chosen the opposite path: to post virtually all its course materials on the Web, free to everybody.
M.I.T. plans on Wednesday to announce a 10-year initiative, apparently the biggest of its kind, that intends to create public Web sites for almost all of its 2,000 courses and to post materials like lecture notes, problem sets, syllabuses, exams, simulations, even video lectures. Professors' participation will be voluntary, but the university is committing itself to post sites for all its courses, at a cost of up to $100 million.
Visitors will not earn college credits....
[The full article is at <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/04/technology/04MIT.html>.]