[nu23]

Yes, a place to take exams could be one of the important services the center provides. There could be an independent exam standards organization, which would check that the exams at center are fairly conducted.

Interestingly, since a distributed model is now possible, the content of the exams and grading procedures could be decided by the course designer. The center and exam standards body would just administer it. And the course designer could be anybody just as anybody can write a book. The only constraints would be students should be willing to take the course, which in turn could depend on the ability for the course to count as credit in a virtual major(apart from other factors like student intrinsic interest and usefulness of the course). There would probably be different organizations with different criterion for including a course in a major. A single course could be in many such major programs. So course design, physical infrastructure, exam/grading standards and formal accumulation of course into a virtual degree could all be handled independently, though I guess, in practice, some of them will be handled by one organization. Some of this has already happened.