Big Think, the New York-based publisher and syndicator of short videos of thought leaders in business, academia, politics and the arts, now provides video-centric courses to top universities including Harvard and Yale.

Students watch a 14-part series of one-hour presentations along with supplemental reading material and receive credit.

It is also offering these videos to general public, subscription-based  portal called Floating University.

We spoke with Big Think CEO and co-founder Victoria Brown for this explanation of the new academic offering.

Brown says that the company's short, 3-5 minute, thought leadership videos are getting over two million video views per month.

The company launched four years ago.

The business around online video education may get a big boost if President Obama's 3-year $8 billion plan to help community colleges provide online education training is enacted.

Andy Plesser