Actually, in terms of remote classes, Stanford is in a very special situation. Stanford has been providing distance learning in engineering for 30+ years, primarily to local high-tech companies. Delivery was done through dedicated TV circuits (most client companies are local), VCR tapes and started switching to Internet in 1999. That means that the classes, the facilities, and all the associated processes are fully optimized for remote delivery. Curious side benefit for full time students in CS is that you really don't need to go to class, and can just watch it on TV/Internet.

This used to be called SITN (Stanford Instructional Television Network), and is apparently called SCPD ( http://scpd.stanford.edu ) now. Check out the offered courses. They cover full BS & MS+ in Computer Science and many other engineering fields.

Many large companies in SV are members, and offer mostly free access to Stanford courses to the employees. It's a nice perk and an advantage when recruiting. It's also a significant source of revenue for Stanford, something they will think twice about giving away. It's a standard problem of a market leader having to cannibalize it's own market. So, it's great if somewhat surprising to see Stanford starting out in this direction.