As the semester (or trimester) gets under way for most academics in the U.S., faculty are dusting off lectures and preparing their lectures.   The “chalk and talk” lecture format is, of course, still popular.  Yet increasingly universities are opening up the classroom to those outside the enrolled student population and posting digital videos of faculty lectures online.   I’m sure there are more, but here’s a beginning list of resources (from OpenCulture):

Spotlighted Collections

Other University Collections

This sort of opening up of higher education is, as John Seely Brown points out,  part of a larger Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, that began in 2001 when the William and Flora Hewlett and the Andrew W. Mellon foundations jointly funded MIT’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative, which has provided free access to a wide range of courses and other educational materials to anyone who wants to use them.   Just another sign that we’re in the midst of a sea change in higher education.