Free: The University of the People

Have you been hearing about a "free" university? Perhaps the reference is to Shai Reshef's University of the People. Here's a link to a brief Q&A with Reshef in Campus Technology magazine. Here's a link to the school's website. 

When a student signs up, he or she is grouped with 20 other individuals whom they interact with and learn from via homework assignments, discussion questions, and lectures. Students discuss the questions among themselves and participate in a peer-to-peer learning environment. If at any point a peer can't help--or if a student needs more elaboration on a particular topic--then they can visit the course forum. There they will find all university students who are taking the same course, along with volunteers, professors and graduate students who can help with those issues. At the end of each week, students take a quiz on the material they've learned, turn in their homework and receive a grade. The same system is used for all 40 courses that comprise the program.