Harvard University Launches iTunes U Content

iTunes U has such huge potential, I just wish Universities would add more high quality content.

why is this even page 2 news? there are tons of elite schools that already have pages (some with lots of content), like Bowdoin, Columbia, MIT, Oxford, Princeton, and Wesleyan...

I can't believe there are only two comments and the same number of pos and negs, how are people not more excited about this? Free direct feeds from classes and labs that people spend countless years and dollars working towards just exposure to alone ...

Yelmurc said:

iTunes U has such huge potential, I just wish Universities would add more high quality content.

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I agree.

Something I find exciting about Apple is the way it sells its products. I've been reading the iTunes U pages on the Apple site and they make education, learning and the university experience as a whole incredibly inspiring, yet there seem to be few universities who reflect this in their iTunes U pages.

My own university doesn't have an iTunes U page at all. My lecture notes are uploaded to an ugly and busy site with link-after-link to get to where you want to be (Moodle). To have PDFs of my lectures on iTunes would, for me at least, inspire learning due to its ease and prominence in my everyday life.

If I knew how to do everything I'd get set on making the iTunes U page myself.

I'm hoping more Ivy League Schools make the move. UC Berkeley has been awesome with iTunes University...

DocNYz said:

I can't believe there are only two comments and the same number of pos and negs, how are people not more excited about this? Free direct feeds from classes and labs that people spend countless years and dollars working towards just exposure to alone ...

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Well, it's great to have access to the classes, but it takes a dedicated person to take a class in addition to his/her regular schedule. I think a 3 credit hour class in the semester system will require at least 10 hours/week. As I understand iTunes U, you don't have to follow at the same pace so the time commitment can be less. The other downside is that one needs the textual content for a class and those textbooks are generally quite expensive. Lecture notes are great, but sometimes one wants the details in a textbook.

There's a gap in time for posting many of these classes. Sometimes a gap of about 3-7 days...

Harvard has already been on iTunes U for awhile. I downloaded the Harvard Computer Science classes last October. Other then that I LOVE iTunes U and have so much great stuff downloaded from them. If I was a college professor I would push for this kind of thing. Its great to give people the opportunity to learn even if they can't afford college.

(I know some people think such people are free loaders but they don't have the piece of paper in the end that matters, so I see nothing wrong with it).

I wish my college would get on iTunes U.

Maybe the issue is that the Universities don't make any money off these. If they allowed me to view all the videos for free but pay $ 0.99 for each lectures reading materials I'd be very interested.

Most universities just add dumb speeches and non-relevant info. Harvard did not post any lectures, so a pretty boring announcement.

Ðe university might not earn any money, but I did follow a lecturer, whose book I shall buy when it comes out because I liked ðe class.

Quality varies a lot. Yale's lectures seem to be ðe best average quality, but I also would note ðat lots of oðer universities have good lecturers, and "name-brand" isn't everyþing.

One of the major things holding this back is there is no solution to the question of intellectual property. It's the professor's research, lectures, etc., but it's the University's hardware and production. So who owns the product? Also, if the professor moves on, does he take his intellectual products with him, even if the university paid to have them produced?

These issues are resolvable, but they're quite difficult.