[ghaff]

Early 2000s (so about a decade earlier). Here's a quote from then-MIT president on introducing OCW.

MIT President Charles Vest said that “We are not providing an MIT education on the Web. We are providing our core materials that are the infrastructure that undergirds an MIT education. Real education requires interaction, the interaction that is part of American teaching. We think that OpenCourseWare will make it possible for faculty here and elsewhere to concentrate even more on the actual process of teaching, on the interactions between faculty and students that are the real core of learning.”

ADDED: Video was not nearly as democratized at the time. YouTube wasn't founded until 2005.

[mennis16]

Interesting, thanks for the info! I think the statement could still apply even with videos available, but of course it is also in MIT's best interest to say this.

Honestly I really like the idea of using OCW materials to run a course, I'd have loved something like that instead of the AP program in high school. It's too bad the original intended use didn't catch on (or at least I've never seen it used that way).