Four years ago, MIT made a committment to sharing the educational materials from all of their undergraduate and graduate courses online, making it free and accessible to people around the world. More than 1400 courses from their OpenCourseWare site , ranging from Aeronautics to Nuclear Sciences to Writing and Humanistic Studies is available through written syllabi to video lectures. There are also interactive web demonstrations and complete MIT authored textbooks available for study. 

One of the best outcomes of this initiative is that it has inspired a number of other universities around the world to offer some of their own materials online to the general public.

Some examples of available courseware online:

• The University of Washington, Course in Practical Cryptology. This course has made all the videos, presentations, quizzes and homework assignments online.
• Stanford University, iTunes LecturesIn collaboration with Apple, Stanford introduced a number of lectures on a Stanford version of iTunes .
• Berkeley also offers their own .
• Yale University plans to offer their own video streamed lectures to the general public through the Open Educational Resources Video Lecture project. Only select courses will be recorded and it is expected that the content will be available next year. 
• The Fulbright Economics Teaching Program says, on their site, that their courseware "is a resources for people working or studying in policy-related fields to increase their knowledge and explore new approaches to learning and curriculum development.
• Keio University (Japan) offers a variety of free opencourseware, as does Osaka University and Kyoto University.