Not really, for a number of reasons. One of which is that the OU's target audience includes people who might not be able to afford a multimedia PC. Another of which is that a broadcast creates a shared experience in time - the class can all be kept "on the same page". Dealing with a class who're all over the course would make it much more expensive.
I haven't lived in the UK for a while, so when I searched to find out what was up with the OU, I went to http://www.open2.net/ which is specifically for OU-on-TV resources. I should have one to http://www.open.ac.uk/ which is the real OU site, and where there are multiple study paths and resources, of which the TV broadcast lectures are only one option among many.
Sorry :-/
What I should have said
Non-UK HN readers should check out the Open University - this is the best landing page: http://www3.open.ac.uk/study You can get an accredited degree or pursue post-graduate studies, and while an OU degree is not as desirable as one from a top-end institution, it is still respected - not least because of the student dedication required. The OU does have absolutely outstanding course materials.
Student fees vary, though they're still a bit pricey - roughly $15,000 for an undergraduate degree if you live outside the UK, about half that if in. You need to be in Europe in order to take exams at least once a year.
I can imagine a lectures could be put on video for much less than $2000 each with the right technology.
Certainly you can do it for much less...$2000 was a ballpark price for doing something of pretty decent quality that's going to be visually engaging - the best lecturer in the world is a lot less compelling when s/he's been reduced to the size of a postcard or less. I think auto-editing would be next to useless except for the most basic things like:
while(wide_cam.frame.rightside.movement = true)
wait 10 seconds
edit_cut_to (medium_closeup.cam[1])
end while
On the other hand, I do think there's a great startup opportunity here, mixing some basic production techniques with some visual FX techniques (let's animate that polynomial as the lecturer explains it to us) and some decent interactive controls (pause and rewind are sloppy relics of linear information access - what we want are the kind of contextual controls at which game UIs excel).
1. The technology just isn't there yet. MIT's entire lecture series is not online, far from it. Many of the OCW courses have only notes, no video, and the ones that have video often lack resolution to be able to read the notes on the board. Also, has anyone ever used Blackboard? It's horrible.
That has absolutely nothing to do with the technology, which is just fine thank you. What's missing is a few man-years of recording and post-production work - which colleges probably don't want to spend money on in order to give away free. A 2-hour lecture isn't too complex to film, but to get good results you need to spend maybe $2000+.
Multiply that out by the number of courses and you're looking at quite a chunk of money...although it would seem a highly appropriate task for a government grant (if you wanted to put the material into the public domain) or could be self-financing with a little planning.
Th BBC's open university offers a model for this, though a rather pricey one - http://www.open2.net/ ...inexplicably, though, it's still built around TV broadcasts which is kinda stupid nowadays.