Oct. 10 — The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has decided to publish online all its course materials — a $107,840 value. The MIT OpenCourseWare project launched two weeks ago with a preliminary pilot that just scratches the surface of MIT’s publishing ambitions. As of Sept. 30, people with an Internet connection and a Web browser have been able to access the syllabus, lecture notes, exams and answers, and in some cases, even the videotaped lectures of 32 MIT courses.
SO FAR, MORE THAN 130,000 Web visitors from around the world have plugged into the pilot, tapping into a vein of information for which MIT undergraduates pay $26,960 per year for tuition.
“This material is out there for the good of mankind,” said Jon Paul Potts, an MIT spokesperson. “There is no attempt to charge for this. There is no revenue model.”
By the 2006-2007 school year, MIT plans to publish the...