Apple Venture Lets iTunes Users Listen In On Campus Lectures

Apple announced last week the launch of internet media program iTunes U, a free service offering users a virtual seat at UC Berkeley and more than a dozen of the nation’s other top schools.

The iTunes U service, which is accessible through the iTunes store, offers podcasts of lectures, guest speakers and sporting events from 16 universities, including UC Berkeley, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Apple and UC Berkeley first began their partnership to develop iTunes U for the campus in April 2006.

While portions of the iTunes U library were available prior to the announcement, the full-scale version of the program began last Wednesday.

Since then, the iTunes U library has collected more than 10.6 million MP3 files from the campus, including 3,000 hours of lecture from more than 80 courses, making UC Berkeley one of the largest contributors to the program, said Adam Hochman, a project manager for UC Berkeley’s podcast program.

While numerous classes are already available via webcasts on the UC Berkeley Web site, Hochman said the campus hopes to reach more users who visit the iTunes store looking for music, movies and news programs every day.

“Several of our classes were in the top 100 most popular podcasts," Hochman said. “We can have a professor of philosophy compete against The New York Times.”

While the program provides free access to certain events from top schools, some iTunes U participating universities limit course access to users affiliated with the school.

“It’s a walled garden approach,” Hochman said. “They’ll show some stuff to the public, but some schools feel like the course content is something they want to keep behind walls.”

However, at UC Berkeley, everything captured by podcast technology is made accessible to the public through the program, Hochman said.

Currently, 20 of the largest classrooms on campus are outfitted with podcast technology. Every semester, professors teaching in those classrooms are invited to broadcast their lectures—for those who opt in, going live on the Web is as simple as clipping a microphone to their shirt, Hochman said.

Hochman said people as far away as Moscow and the Middle East have been virtually sitting in on UC Berkeley classes through the iTunes U program. He mentioned a soldier serving in Iraq who told him he listens to lectures, and a taxi driver in the United Kingdom who listens to an economics class on his iPod while waiting for customers.

“We get tons of e-mails from people from all walks of life,” Hochman said.

But it’s not just taxi drivers and soldiers who tap into the virtual classroom, Hochman said. Students use webcasts and podcasts of lectures to help them study for exams.

“During finals, usage just skyrockets,” he said.

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