iTunesU; Do students like it?
The list of colleges and Universities signing up to iTunesU continues to grow. Since I last wrote about it – “Another Success Story (UCL)” – the likes of the OU (for those reading outside of the UK, this is The Open University) have a reported World Record as the first to reach 20 million downloads (source: Bee-It) since starting to use iTunesU in the Summer of 2008!
As reported in the Bee-It post, the OU says that;
“mobile phones are increasingly being used to download their tracks. Martin Bean, Vice-Chancellor of the Open University, says that the growth of the iTunesU concept reflects the changing ways that people are learning.”
Martin Bean continues by saying;
“The way people want to learn is changing. Many now actively seek out content they are interested in and which they can watch, read or listen to when it suits them. New channels are helping people to fit learning in with their lifestyles, and the OU has always kept pace with the changing world of technology.”
ReadWriteWeb report that iTunesU is “better than going to class“, but Jim Groom doesn’t think it’s going to make any difference. Jim has some good points (especially the one about “everyone is doing it”) but surely a bigger picture is that it raises the profile of the Institution and (hopefully) the quality and perception of the materials provided to enrolled students?
Personally, I would love to be involved in generating and managing an iTunesU account for the Business School; we have lectures recorded using Echo360, which are automatically created with associated MP3 and M4B iTunes Audiobook format, as well as other material recorded straight to camera tape or memory.
This is the kind of material that reflects the quality of the teaching staff in the Business School. Regarding the question of whether students like it or not, how about student work being (with appropriate permission sought and obtained) loaded that reflects the quality of student in the Business School? I haven’t seen any of that in iTunesU yet (or did I miss it?).
So do students like it? It’s difficult for me to tell as we at Bournemouth are not using it. From reading around the Internet it seems that, on the whole, yes they are, just look at the numbers above. I would like to hear about whether your students (or you, if you’re a student) like or dislike iTunesU, but please say why?
So, it’s worked for the OU … have you had any similar interest or success with your use of iTunesU, or has your Institution opted to not invest the time and effort? Please leave your comments below, or anyone of the ‘related posts’ links also shown below.
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What is the definition of “worked for the OU”? ROI?
Alan – This perhaps joins quite nicely in with the comment from Nick below … if participation with iTunesU is part of a wider marketing strategy then 20 million downloads in roughly 2 years is quite a good achievement, whoever the audience has been.
What would be interesting to know is if the OU have released any facts and figures of interest and sign-up rates in this time; is there a correlation between interest in OU courses and the number of students signing-up and starting them?
One to keep an eye on?
All the best, David.
Ah, you used the “C”-word. Repeat after me: Correlation does not equal causation.
iTunesU – branding, yes. Marketing? Who can say. The OU is different to other universities in that they already have a huge, professional multimedia output. Should other institutions invest to compete? No.
Wrong question about the wrong audience.
iTunesU is for non-students, or students from other institutions at most. It’s also not relevant if they “like” the gateway through which they access materials but if they find the materials useful and/or if it influences their perceptions of an institution positively.
The reason iTunesU is not for students is because not all students will have access to a device compatable with iTunes and hence institutions need to provide the matterial through another gateway too (Linux etc devices). This is not onerous either as institutions in the UK have to host the content anyhow and in providing the XML for iTunes have effectively defined a data structure than can be published locally too but using open standards. Thus current students will likely be directed to that gateway rather than via itunesu.
Itunesu is only practically about marketing and is a closed walled gateway that only really adds the convinience of a single marketplace to the insitutions and a slightly more convenient mechanism to transfer content to some device types for some people.
…it’s still ‘important’, but not for “students” – for life long learners and marketing departments.
Nick – I don’t think there is anything wrong in looking at content on iTunesU as a marketing ploy; I don’t want to think that that is the only reason?
I also don’t think that, looking at the amount of work and costs involved in getting set up with iTunesU (system as well as content) any Institution would undertake it from a purely marketing strategy, but rather as part of a wider strategy.
As far as what you say about students having, or not, access to an iTunes-compatible device, surely the same could be true of most professionals?
I asked about students liking it (or not) because, in my role, I would be asked to look at the system from whether the student would benefit from the Institution’s participation.
All the best, David.
(i think i should start by stating my views here certainly do not necessarily represent the views of the institution i work for)
Perhaps my own issues stem from how i see Apple building a revenue stream from the efforts of institutions – i see them adding no value in the relationship which couldn’t be done without them, but just because they are the “only game in town” institutions are getting in bed with them because they cant be seen to be behind the curve.
It reminds me of cigarette advertising years ago where each brand spent a fortune on ads because they needed to retain market share – when ads were banned, all the brands were actually better off as they all kept the same market share and total sales but they all saved the money previous “wasted” collectively on marketing.
I didn’t mean to imply that using iTunesU for marketing is a bad thing given the group think marketing madness we’re all drifting into – if that’s where the audience is, then of course that’s where you need to put your stall out.
I agree that institutions must look at iTunesU as part if a wider strategy too – that’s certainly the case for UoP – but the wider strategy is about providing an infrastructure for rich media generally, and iTunesU will just be one of the routes through which such materials are surfaced…unless it’s part of a wider strategy it really doesn’t merit the investment in infrastructure and materials – except everyone else is doing it so everyone feels they have to too.
The materials created certainly enable mobile/blended/flexible learning for existing students and are likely to be being developed already (the OU exemplifies this) – but signing up for iTunesU could perhaps be used to stimulate academics to seek to excel if they know their “product” will be visible externally. That in itself can be a useful part of a wider strategy.
The point about students not having access to an iPod is that that fact dictates that an institution needs to also surface materials through an alternative front end if they want to not limit the number of current students who can access the materials, which will likely then be the route all students are directed towards rather than iTunes as the front end. Thus iTunesU becomes practically irrelevant for existing students. Sure, some may use it but probably more for accessing materials from other institutions to supplement their learning which they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
I suggest one way your institutions students would benefit from the institutions participation in iTunesU (probably the main way) will be if the quality of content raises the reputation of the institution and hence the prestige of degrees obtained from there. However, if the content is bad, the converse is also true. The “iTunes” bit of that equation is irrelevant though, it is equally true for any published material about the institution – prospectus, web site etc.
What many students do like about itunesU is access to quality rich media learning resources to support traditional face to face teaching – much of which is probably being stimulated to be created because iTunes insist on institutions constantly creating new content as part of the contract.
Thanks Nick – it does seem that Apple (and Google) are becoming the all-invasive provider & manufacturer that we used to hate Microsoft for.
If we can improve the quality of materials published for the students then it is a good idea; simply recording and making available internally may not be enough of a driving force for some, so making them public might encourage them (or work the opposite; it might deter them completely from being involved).
Thanks for the comment, always welcome.
All the best, David
PS. Do you have to have an iPod to use iTunes? I think other devices can access iTunes materials … I’ll check on that!
What world are you living in, all students have access to itunes, it’s free and on most mobile phones now! What century are you from?
I received this Tweet from Bernie Goldbach;
“iTunesU is for non-students, or students from other institutions.”
to which I replied;
“Can also be used internally; access setting in #iTunesU can be restricted (therefore internal) – pgs 64/66 http://bit.ly/9HDneV”
The link is to the PDF of the Apple iTunesU Administrative guide, which outlines the various types of authorisation and authentication credentials that can be applied for user access for ‘advanced users’. It seems to be based around (one aspect of it anyway) them being assigned “the Authenticated or Unauthenticated credential depending on whether or not they were transferred into iTunesU with an authorization token.”
The question would be, what does ituneu add then if you already have a “pay wall” to keep your content behind? OK, makes access “simpler” for some who have the right sort of device on the right sort of desktop, but it adds a significant complexity (cost) for a relatively slight gain then.
Interesting discussion. I think we need to publish learning resources to students in ways that are accessible to them. I’m doing a postgrad course at the moment as well as a member of staff and I’d much prefer to be able to subscribe to any course podcasts through iTunes-U than having to log in to Blackboard. If I didn’t have an iPod or iPhone I could still listen or watch the podcasts on my PC or laptop you don’t have to download to your iPod. I do that in the office when I’m looking for podcasts which might be helpful to use in our teaching or would be helpful reference for our students. Speaking to our students many of them are downloading podcasts from other medical schools and then listening to them when they are driving through to the different hospitals they are doing their clinical attachments in and even when they are doing their ironing!! They want us to provide vodcasts of clinical procedures which they can watch on their iPods or iPhones to provide helpful chunks of just-in-time learning in the way that other schools are doing.
We are exploring iTunesU and if we sign up I’m sure that there will be content which is published to support marketing of the institution, but we will also publish some open content which I think will help with scholarly recognition for those staff producing good quality resources. We will also have content which will only be available to our students as do many of the other Universities which have a presence on iTunes-U.