The Frankston science buff tunes into lectures from his bed at home, on holidays or after school. His online study has no connection to his school.

He is one of an estimated 2000 school students in Australia studying courses at the world's top universities for free, through an online platform called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC).

Intellectual curiosity is driving these students, who are studying the courses at their own pace, often in their pyjamas at home.

Oscar and his friends believe the platform is "the future of the classroom".

And the Australian tertiary sector appears to agree. Universities are now exploring options to give students like Oscar credit for their hard work.

Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington is lobbying Australia's state-based school assessment authorities to accredit the university's Astrophysics MOOC, taught by Nobel Laureate and Vice Chancellor-to-be Brian Schmidt.

This would make the course count towards a school student's Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR). (The ANU already awards credit for students doing its course online.)

She has succeeded in the ACT and will lobby the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre after she targets New South Wales.

The sector is watching closely. Other universities hungry for enrolments are busy partnering with schools to design online courses for the classroom.

The move to formalise online learning at schools has been described as the future for school education: personalised, student-led learning.

If primary school students choose to study Astrophysics at a tertiary level (and they are), why shouldn't they get credit for it at school or at university?

"This is an opportunity to think a bit more laterally," said Professor Hughes-Warrington.

"Students are strong at different things at different times and we need to be more flexible about where young people are at. It's about learning where you're ready to learn."

In 2012, top universities Harvard University and MIT flung open their lecture room doors to offer a bite-sized version of their courses (generally six or seven weeks) through a global online learning project, edX.

Some of the universities to join the bandwagon would offer their courses in full. Interactive discussions and regular testing was offered, with an option to pay for a certificate at completion.

The move was branded a "revolution" in higher education by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, believing it would solve the problem of poverty through free education.

More basically, the shift to online was a successful PR campaign for universities.

Sceptics have cited the huge drop-out rates for MOOCs, with only 10 per cent of students completing their courses.

And questions remain over how to prevent cheating if MOOCs were to be widely adopted and credited by Australian schools.

Monash University's pro vice-chancellor for teaching and learning, Professor Darrell Evans, said workloads and learning outcomes of the MOOCs needed to be established before any bid for ATAR or university credit.

"When we set them up, we just opened up our courses and gave people access, but how do you align and make it appropriate for the curriculum at school and university?"

MOOCs needed to be less didactic and more task-oriented, said Edith Cowan University's Pro-Vice-Chancellor in teaching and learning Professor Ron Oliver.

"They're good at building a knowledge base, but whether or not people can use that knowledge for a useful end is perhaps not what was intended."

Frankston High School Year 11 student Oscar Cooke-Abbott said he would happily accept a school grade, or at best, an undergraduate degree in Physics from MIT after finishing the three-year online course.

"It should be seen as more of a real learning process instead of being pushed aside, especially when you have a real teacher and it feels like a real classroom," he said.

"The fact that you don't have to put on your uniform or learn at a specific time means you can put more effort into it and be more relaxed, which aids learning."

The Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre wouldn't rule out the bid, saying it would judge a MOOC the same as any other tertiary and VET courses accredited by the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority.