&gt; Online lectures. Uploaded scripts.<p>Online lectures provide too many distractions. Constant urge to check emails or HN. I tried a MOOC once (Andrew Ng&#x27;s Machine Learning), and the pace was too slow for me to stay concentrated for even a couple of minutes. Still, recorded lectures can be useful (e.g. if you get sick, you can catch up after recovering). I just don&#x27;t think that they&#x27;re very well suited to being the <i>primary</i> delivery format.<p>There is rarely a good excuse not to upload scripts, though, and at my university most are uploaded. My university also uploads lots of recorded lectures on youtube and provides discussion forums. Everyone can watch the lectures and download the material.<p>&gt; In my university the different institutes are distributed across the whole city<p>That&#x27;s unfortunate, but it&#x27;s a fairly rare problem in Germany. Many of the best universities are in fairly small cities like Heidelberg, Tübingen, Freiburg (all of these have a population between 90k and 150k). Those that aren&#x27;t are often not that strewn about, or at least clustered (TU München has a Garching campus for natural sciences, but afaik students don&#x27;t have to travel between the centre and Garching a lot).<p>My university (Karlsruhe) is a centrally located campus university. Everything is within 10 walking minutes.<p>&gt; I&#x27;m talking about the carpenter with an interest in theoretical physics, astronomy or arts.<p>I&#x27;m all in favour of enabling that, but you neglect that 90%+ of students are full-time students, and that is the model that universities cater to.