iTunes U:
Corporate channel of
free educational resources
SPIDER: Sharing Practice with iTunes U Digital
Eduational Resources
Terese Bird
Learning Technologist and SCORE Fellow
University of Leicester/Open University
ALT-C 8 September, 2011
www.le.ac.uk
What’ll we talk about?
• What is iTunes U?
• Is iTunes U an OER channel?
• Impact – not just downloads
• How to join in
Photo courtesy of quiroso on Flickr
iTunes U for University
iTunes U USPs
•Multimedia Beyond-text
•PCs and Macs
•Made for mobile
•Apple control making sure things work
•Apple marketing
Power Search
Not just universities
Is iTunes U OER?
Way back in 2005…
What is OER?
OER Commons:
“Open Educational Resources are teaching and
learning materials that you may freely use
and reuse, without charge. OER often have a
Creative Commons or GNU license that state
specifically how the material may be used,
reused, adapted, and shared.”
Most important to learners & educators!
Easily adapted
Educators
✔ ✗
Free
Accessible
Good Quality
Learners
✔
Copyright OK
iTunes U OER Scorecard
Attractive to
contributors
Usable
Useful
Used
Sustainable
Profile ✔
User
Experience ✔
Quality
material ✔
Download
numbers ✔
Over 800
universities
✔
‘Apple gloss’
✔
Search
function ✔
Consistency
✔
Teachers ✔
Apple ✔
International
reach ✔
Apple mobile
✔
Copyright
✗ ✔−
Personal ✔
Benefit to
contributors/i
nstitution ✔
Linux, Android
✗
Feedback
✗✔
Not very
repurposable
✗✔
Discoverability Community
✗✔
✗
Downloads
University
Downloads
Open University, UK
Over 38 million since June 2008
University of Oxford
Over 10 million since June 2008
Coventry University
2.5 million in 2010 alone
University of Warwick
1 million Jan ‘09 – June ‘10
Cranfield University
5000 in 1st 10 days
31 August – 7 September iTunesU Tweets
Language
No. of Tweets
Language
No. of Tweets
English
155
Portuguese
3
Japanese
52
Croatian
2
French
34
Indonesian
2
Spanish
15
Russian
2
Turkish
5
China
1
German
3
Dutch
1
Norwegian
3
Korean
1
Polish
3
Slovak
1
Major Themes
Theme
Example
Specific
recommendation to
another person
You might find MIT's OCW site of interest, also on
iTunesU, for Python: http://t.co/DOYOOQ1
They just posted new lectures from @BunBTrillOG
on iTunesU psyched to listen." << from when he
was teaching @ Rice?
Man there's some good podcasts on itunesU for
game theory.. Really good stuff..!
Report that I am
learning something with
iTunes U
Sunday morning with Paul Hegarty & iOS studies.
History of the Pixel –http://t.co/38YXIKI #iTunesU
| RMIT University
#iTunesU #VamosAqui
Unexpected themes
Theme
Example
Series
Excellent videos to review Clinical Anatomy from Stanford
University, presented by R.Snell. Fifteen episodes downloadable
free from iTunesU.
@cells_nnm new lectures on iTunesU this winter. Story about the
class here: http://t.co/IuZ
Addictive
TunesU courses downloaded into the iPad = life is good.
Dear iTunes, you are full of bloat but your collection of awesome
lectures on iTunesU is both brilliant and addictive
I have just discovered iTunesU...my life is now complete.
The good: I haven't use iTunes in over a week! The bad: I am
craving some iTunesU lectures…
#iTunesU #VamosAqui
Other Impact
• ‘Apple gloss’ ends up encouraging OER
discussion at institution
• PhD student applications improve
• Hits on university website increase
• Multimedia OER
• Mobile OER
• Beyond Campus
• K-12
Photo courtesy of superkimbo on Flickr
How to jump in
Apply to
Apple
What do
we have?
What can
we keep
producing?
How to jump in
DIY
Production
support
Your server
How to jump in
Apple
Students
IT
Academics
Sen Mgmt
Marketing
Make it work for you
• www.le.ac.uk/spider
• tmb10@le.ac.uk
• Twitter: tbirdcymru
References
• Yuan, L., MacNeill, S., Kraan, W. (2008) Open Educational
Resources – Opportunities and Challenges for Higher
Education, Educational Cybernetics: Reports 2008, 35.
Retrieved from wiki.cetis.ac.uk
• http://wiki.creativecommons.org/What_is_OER%3F
• http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/1780
•
http://projects.kmi.open.ac.uk/itunesu/impact/
• White, D., Wild, J., Masterman, L., Manton, M. (2011) JISC
OER Impact Study: Research Report. Retrieved from
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/o
er2/oerimpact.aspx