Hey, maybe it's just me, but I just don't see what's so great about MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative. I mean, I really want to like it. I have a lot of mission around the idea of spreading free education and training to those less fortunate around the world.

By way of background: MIT raised $11 million to fund the initiative to put the entire curriculum online (almost 2000 courses). Items include course outlines, lecture notes, reading lists, lab assignments and quizzes.

With 500 courses now online, the hype has reached a fever pitch. In Wired magazine's current article, MIT Everywhere, we learn that 100's of students in less developed locales like Vietnam, Pakistan, Iran, (and of course Nashville and Kansas City) are improving their skills and supplementing their traditional college education. And from MIT's own web site we see enthusiastic statements like:

• "...Ethiopian refugees living in Kenya who will benefit greatly..."
• "...one of the most exciting applications of the Internet to date."
• "...restores my faith in the dignity and nobility of humanity."
• "...MIT OCW is the 8th Wonder of the World."

So I visited the 8th Wonder of the World and checked out its most popular course, 24.00 Philosophy. As a self-directed student, I have some problems:

1) It requires the textbook Reason and Responsibility. I don't have it and doubt the Ethiopian refugees will either.

2) Lecture notes are fairly detailed, but they are notes -- not the lecture --and a lot of it I don't understand.

3) Part of the course is to write three papers. Great, but without being able to submit them and get feedback, of what value are the topics alone?

I studied Economics in college so I checked out those MIT courses, too. Same problem. No textbook, lecture notes didn't cut it, no discussion or feedback.

I'm just not sure how MIT is different than a lot of other schools who's professors already put all this stuff up on the web for their students. I Googled Philosophy Course Syllabus and there are a lot of colleges who are posting the same materials as MIT's.

As for being a resource for teachers and to improve methods, I guess I see some value in that. But I'd hope that most professors would realize that an approach that works at an Ivy League school in Cambridge might not be the right one for Cal State Fullerton or a college in Mumbai or Ho Chi Minh City.

In MIT's defense, the OCW initiative probably works better for technical courses than for humanities. And it is obviously a good thing to provide a single, well organized location for access to all their materials. If they set an example for other schools to follow, that's good.

But it still doesn't live up to its hype. If MIT really wants to impact the world they need to put actual lectures online (video, audio, transcripts) and (this is the hard part) minimize their use of proprietary textbooks and move toward open source content. Although still missing the college experience and expert guidance, self-directed students would have a much better chance of learning the MIT way.

Kevin Kruse is the e-learning columnist for CLO, Chief Learning Officer magazine, author of Technology-based Training (Jossey-Bass), and Principal with Kenexa. He can be reached at kkruse@e-learningguru.com