“It’s just a couple thousand, but it’s our first revenue,” Ms. Koller said. “When faculty recommend a textbook and people buy it on Amazon, we get some money. The funny thing is that we’re getting more than twice as much money from things like Texas Rangers jackets as from what the textbooks are bringing in.”

Other possibilities around the edges include charging a subscription fee, after a class is over, to continue the discussion forum as a Web community, or perhaps offering follow-up courses, again for a fee. And advertising sponsorships remain a possibility.

Like the Antioch deal, some early attempts have gotten off to a slow start. For example, the University of Washington has already offered credit for a fee in a few Coursera courses. But while thousands of students enrolled in the free version, only a handful chose the paid credit-carrying option. David P. Szatmary, the vice provost, said part of the problem was that the credit option was posted only shortly before the course started, when most students had already enrolled free.

“We’re going to try it again,” he said. “We think that if students know about the possibility of doing it for credit, they might be willing to pay a fee and get their own discussion board, an instructor who guides them through the course and some additional readings and projects.”

Some Coursera partners say they are in no hurry to cash in.

“Part of what Coursera’s gotten right is that it makes more sense to build your user base first and then figure out later how to monetize it, than to worry too much at the beginning about how to monetize it,” said Edward Rock, a law professor serving as the University of Pennsylvania’s senior adviser on open course initiatives.