Open CourseWare
If you're interested in seeing what goes on in the lecture halls of MIT, you can browse a healthy portion of their curriculum online, for free, at their Open CourseWare site.
MIT charges tens of thousands of dollars for their students to attend their classes and hear those lectures, so the fact that the put it all online, free of charge, for anyone to see, is a little surprising. But from a business perspective, it makes a good deal of sense. It increases the number of people who can get a taste of what it is to be a student at MIT, which should increase applications, which increases the number of people they turn away, which makes them more exclusive.
You can get all the information you need to know what an MBA knows by reading thirty or forty books. But people don't pay for information; they pay for accreditation.
The Internet has caused lots of things to go open source. Music is well on its way to becoming a public utility instead of a product. I'm anxious to see what happens in the next ten years, as higher education increasingly ends up online.
MIT charges tens of thousands of dollars for their students to attend their classes and hear those lectures, so the fact that the put it all online, free of charge, for anyone to see, is a little surprising. But from a business perspective, it makes a good deal of sense. It increases the number of people who can get a taste of what it is to be a student at MIT, which should increase applications, which increases the number of people they turn away, which makes them more exclusive.
You can get all the information you need to know what an MBA knows by reading thirty or forty books. But people don't pay for information; they pay for accreditation.
The Internet has caused lots of things to go open source. Music is well on its way to becoming a public utility instead of a product. I'm anxious to see what happens in the next ten years, as higher education increasingly ends up online.