The Science Media Network

• Home
  
• CamTV
  
• Tutorials
  
• Audio Tutorials
  
• Multimedia Articles
  
• Articles
  
  • Mediawiki OER export
    
  • Thoughs on institutional OER contributions
    
  • Web Design 4 Low Bandwidth
    
  • OER 4 Low Bandwidth
    
  • iTunesU launch
    
  • iTunesU press releases
    
• Resources
  
• Meet Me
  
• Projects
  
• Work
  
• MyVideos
  
• Links
  

Articles > iTunesU launch

ITunesU launch

If you look at iTunesU today, you'll see that an interesting change has happened to the iTunesU menu layout:

The list of universities has been moved from the sidebar onto a separate page, which now includes universities from the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. From the UK, UCL and the OU have joined. A rough count: UCL has started out with about 150-200 tracks, while the OU has launched with about 850-900 tracks.

There doesn't seem to be a public announcement from Apple for this. There's nothing in the Apple front page or on http://www.apple.com/hotnews/ or even on the iTunes front page just yet. However, here are some news stories from others:

• UK/Ireland universities:
  • The UCL front page has got a note, linking to http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0806/08060301: "UCL has taken a leading step forward in opening up its educational impact to the world. It has today launched its platform on iTunes U through which users can download lectures, interviews, seminars and news, and play audio and video materials on their iPod or computer."
  • John Naughton has a blog post about the OU: http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2008/06/03/5171
  • The open university now also has a story linked from their front page (http://www.open.ac.uk/), see http://www3.open.ac.uk/media/fullstory.aspx?id=13805 . "The Open University offers free education content on iTunes U in the iTunes Store. The Open University today joins Stanford, MIT, Yale and other world-class universities in publishing materials via Apple’s iTunes U service."
  • Trinity College Dublin: Story on http://www.tcd.ie/, linked to http://www.tcd.ie/Communications/pressRelease.php?headerID=908&pressReleaseArchive=2008: "TCD is first university in Ireland to join iTunes U in the iTunes Store - Dublin, 3 June 2008 - Trinity College Dublin is the first university in Ireland and one of the first in Europe to launch its own iTunes U site that features free access to audio and video files on course material, public lectures and presentations and highlights of College life. Trinity College Dublin on iTunes U was launched today (3 June 2008) as part of Apple’s expansion of iTunes U, now featuring institutions in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand."
• General News
  • BBC news coverage: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7431918.stm "University College London, the Open University and Trinity College Dublin are the first European universities to put free lecture material on iTunes."
  • http://www.macworld.co.uk/education/news/index.cfm?newsid=21527
  • http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/7955/8979/iTunes-University-launches-in-UK.phtml

Page last modified 3 June 2008.