The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced Wednesday that it is undertaking a 10-year plan to make all of its course materials accessible online – free of charge.

The university, better known as MIT, said that through its OpenCourseWare (OCW) project, lecture notes, syllabuses, recitation notes and problem sets – but not the solutions – will be available.

But there's a catch: although the materials from the university's more than 2,000 courses will be free and accessible to anyone with Internet access, MIT will not grant any degrees or credits online.

It's a departure from both "click" universities, which only offer online degrees, and "brick" institutions that have physical campuses but also offer long-distance courses over the Net for a price.

MIT spokeswoman Patti Richards said Wednesday that along with offering such long-distances courses, MIT wants to share knowledge that others can adapt to their own needs.

"Imagine if you want to start giving engineering courses in Africa," Richards said. "Just think what a difference it could make if every institution made its educational resources available."

Richards says that MIT is not concerned that posting their course materials will lessen the appeal of attending MIT's Massachusetts campus, saying that the key to an MIT education is in their classrooms.

The OCW program will begin as a two-year pilot program, and by the end of that time MIT plans to have materials from 500 courses available online.