What better way to teach a course on globalization than to broadcast it free of charge to anybody with an Internet connection, anywhere, at any time. The University of Lethbridge offers a course in Globalization Studies that does just that. Every Wednesday at 8PM EST, the lecture is streamed from their website. Past lectures are then archived as a podcast in your choice of format (Quicktime, an iPod formatted version or an audio only MP3 format) . Miss the lecture? Just download it to your iPod and catch-up while commuting the next day.

The course materials are licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Canada licence. This means that the lectures can be used, reused, and shared around the World in a noncommercial context and so long as the user properly attributes the source. And just like that, a small lecture theatre in Alberta welcomes an infinite audience.

Universities have embraced Creative Commons as a means of broadly distributing publicly subsidized content while retaining control over the copyright. The technology exists, the content is ready, and a Creative Commons licence makes it feasible. Consider using Creative Commons with your univesity’s research or coursewares and join a field including MIT, Rice University, Stanford and now the University of Lethbridge. May the educational commons prosper.