For whatever it means...

Above are the world rankings of universities from the British Times Higher Education magazine based on "academic reputation." [Click on the image to make it clearer.] The full list and info on the survey methodology is at:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2013/reputation-ranking

Would it work for UC?

We have noted in prior posts that the Regents (with a push from Gov. Brown) are interested in promoting online education at UC.  A somewhat different model is noted today in a brief article in Inside Higher Ed.  Online education, even if aimed at a mass audience, is often (not always) a pre-recorded program.  That is, something is put online and students access it at their convenience individually.  The article in Inside Higher Ed reports that Yale, Columbia, and Cornell are using video conferencing (so it's live and at a fixed time) for small courses (capped at 12 students in less popular languages.  Languages taught or to be taught include Romanian, Dutch, Zulu, and others. You can find the article at:
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/11/21/columbia-cornell-yale-collaborate-languages

Yours truly regularly does an online video conference call with a systemwide Senate group roughly the size of the small classes described above.  Presumably, the participants in the language courses see each other (so up to 13 images at once).  If that is what is being done by the three universities, to be used in a class, their technology would have to be a lot better than the system used for my conference calls.

And can you see me?