MIT has put its entire curriculum of 1,800 undergraduate and graduate courses online, making the courses available for free to any user with an Internet connection and a Web browser.

First announced in 2001, MIT's OpenCourseWare includes syllabuses, homework assignments, exams, reference materials and video lectures when available. The information is published under an open license that allows for reuse, distribution and modification of the materials for noncommercial purposes, said OCW spokesman Steve Carson.

"There are lecture notes, exams, homework assignments from about 15,000 lectures, about 9,000 homework assignments, 900 exams. And with the homework assignments and exams, about 40% of them include the solutions, so you can check your work and see how well you've done," Carson said. "For many of the courses, we've been able to add certain types of special enhancements. If there's a simulation or animation that the faculty member has created, we've included that."

An estimated 35 million people have accessed OCW course materials since the program's inception, Carson said.