The Massachusetts Institute of Technology plans to make materials for nearly all its courses available for free over the Internet in the next 10 years.
Many universities see the Internet as a way to deliver revenue-generating distance education.
No credit will be offered in connection with online course materials. Over the next decade, the project expects to provide materials for over 2,000 courses across MIT's entire curriculum, including engineering, arts, humanities, science and social sciences. The project is voluntary, and some professors may elect not to participate, Abelson said. MIT president Charles Vest said the material should provide a tremendous resource for people to use as they wish. Vest said the idea is particularly appropriate for a research university such as MIT, where ideas move quickly from the laboratory to the curriculum, even before they are published in textbooks.