[snikolov]

I wonder why they couldn't (or didn't choose to) partner with individual professors on a per-course basis instead of entire institutions whose professors might not all be interested in participating. Is it because individual professors might not have complete autonomy to do so without the permission of the university? Or maybe partnering with an entire university ensures a greater and more recurring supply of courses? Or that the university might help incentivize what is surely a very time-consuming task by having a course replace some other service requirement?

[pyoung]

Probably all of the above, although I think Udacity was created as a separate entity because the Prof's had some legal issues with Stanford. So having permission is probably pretty important.