I'm going to write a blog post about this I think, I have lots of thoughts on the matter and it would rather clutter the discussion up if I rambled on at length here. I am one of those undertaking 6.002x. My background is in electronics design, but my first degree was not pure electronics but more widely based, incorporating systems and software development. Hence, I didn't get all the in-depth theoretical background which a "pure" electronics student would.
The last time I did any calculus was nearly 20 years ago. Yeah, that's proving rather testing for me. I'm still hanging in there, just. Weeks 6 and 7 have been extremely difficult for me, purely because of the maths. I am not at all confident about the mid-term exam! I started out before the course started, with the aim of "reading around" a subject before the week's lectures. This worked fine right up until week 2. I don't have £70 spare at the moment, so have to read the textbook on-line, which I find to be awkward. I can see this being a big log-jam for many students. I appreciate the fact that printing text books is not cheap, but there are many flexible printing services now which can print on demand, for a sum much lower than £70. Right now, I am tempted to skip the exam rather than get a poor score, but keep on with the lectures. In the hope that I will be able to re-take the course on the next run. If I do re-take it, then I will be running through the MIT Differential Equations course first.
The format they are using for the lectures is rather messy, trying to cram scribbles onto a small screen rather than a conventional black/whiteboard. Other than that, it is almost identical content to existing MIT YouTube lectures. One notable difference being the sound quality, which varies from okay to extremely muffled and indistinct. Consideration really should have been given to generating clear presentation slides, perhaps even generating a formal script. This might help reduce the number of times Prof Agarwal repeats himself (in Week 7 he states the same thing four times, on several occasions).
Pacing. 10 hours study a week is probably about right for the demands of the content, possibly a little conservative. This doesn't sound much, but when you consider it is 25% of a working week, or 1.5 hours every day, then it starts to look rather too much. Skipping one day's study means finding a day with 3 hours free. Over the last month I have had some family health problems which had to take priority, with the result that I have had to skip through things just to keep up. Unfortunately, the structure is that of a chain, which means that all subsequent material becomes considerably more difficult.
If I were running this course, I would either run 1 lecture a week (instead of 2) or run a truly flexible system, paced to the student's ability. There is no reason why this should not be possible in the future, other universities run similar systems. Basically, it needs a pause button, or a course length much longer than that of the real world 6.002.
A few weeks ago on Adafruit's "Ask An Engineer" LadyAda (Limor) was chatting to Woz (Amanda Wozniak). They are both MIT graduates and were asked for their thoughts on 6.002x. I thought their comments were very interesting. They both agreed that 6.002 was known as the "weed them out" course, and is responsible for a number of drop-outs every year. The first half being particularly difficult and dry. Amanda admitted that at one point she was very close to leaving the course as it was so demoralising. They both seemed slightly puzzled that MIT had chosen this course as a pilot.
I'm a little puzzled at the course structuring. Running from circuit analysis, through Mosfets (no coverage of bipolar) then capacitors and inductors. The way I was taught (and the way I have seen it at many other UK universities) is to cover simple passives first, then move into filters. After that it is diodes, transistors, op-amps etc. I agree with the previous poster, concerning how they focus on one part of the theoretical model without explaining other important aspects.
Before anyone says how MIT is special etc, my uni (Leeds) has a pretty decent reputation, and has its share of Nobel laureates too. I don't buy the argument that MIT is somehow on a different planet and inherently better than everywhere else. Sometimes the emperor really is, if not naked, then wearing bermuda shorts. The course as a physical entity is probably sound (if in need of a few tweaks) but the wholesale conversion to online delivery has shown up deficiencies. I guess this is why it is being run!
I can't talk about 6.002x without mentioning cheating. The official forum pretty much has verbatim answers for the homework, and other sources have them even more explicitly. Given the frustrating method of answer entry (which sometimes take longer than working out the actual answer) this is probably vital.