Academic superstars on the Internet

Someone pointed me in the direction of some coursework and lectures at Yale that are available for free (but not for credit... what a pun) on the Internet. And now The New York Times writes about professors at various universities putting themselves on the Internet and becoming academic stars.

Earlier, the Times wrote about how some companies are outsourcing their research work to universities and what that means to the schools in dollars and cents. I know I saw it, but I can't find the link.

In both cases, it sounds like something Marshall needs to look at.

(For what it's worth, I don't use "outsourcing" to describe sending work to other countries. I call that "off-shoring." I believe my usage is more correct technically.).

One more thought: All this reminds me of a 1980s-era show on PBS called "The Mechanical Universe" in which a Cal Tech physics professor uses the best computer animation of the time to explain basic physics. You can find the episodes on the Internet. I have almost all of them on VHS, and they remain some of my favorite vidoes. They even got me to understand the basics of relativity, and if I watched them again, I could explain some of the math, I'm sure.