iTunesU is an area within Apple iTunes which allows
institutions to create accounts and publish their own, branded educational
content. It is a place to showcase excellence in education through the open publication
of teaching resources. We, at LLAS, have recently been involved in the HEA-funded ‘iTunes
and You’ project, where we have taken existing open educational materials
published for research and teaching by humanities staff at the University of
Southampton, and worked with the university marketing department to repackage
them as learning modules in the form of iTunesU course packages. This is a new
way of presenting content through the University’s iTunes site and offers a
model of engagement for academics to showcase and package their research and
teaching work in appealing ways to a broad, global audience.
iTunesU is often seen as exclusively for high-quality video
or audio recordings and it can be an intimidating place for researchers and
teachers to consider when wishing to publish their work openly. The iTunes and
You project has clarified and demystified the process for staff and provided
clear guidance material to assist them in understanding how to publish their
work in this way. In addition, the project has created an exemplar model of how
nuggets of related research and teaching materials can be packaged as mini,
bite-sized modules of learning and published with coherence through the iTunesU
site (and other OER-sharing platforms).
A key aspect of the project has been to demonstrate that
materials created for one particular discipline and educational context
(Spanish language, migration studies) has wide applicability across the
humanities and to a range of audiences in different parts of the world. OERs
used for this project have been published by Southampton as part of the
JISC-funded OpenLIVES project. The material consists of oral testimonies
collected from Spanish migrants, and includes images, learning objects, and
various teaching materials. Materials are in Spanish and English. Click on the
link below to see the materials on iTunes:
Some of our key findings are:
Engagement with iTunesU can be effective if part of a
‘holistic approach’ to publishing open content. Our analysis of iTunesU
content and site management revealed that it has advantages and limitations as
a site for publishing open content. Its advantages include its reach to an
international audience, its high production values (as a website), its value as
a promotional site, and its reputation and requirement for high quality
materials. It also has limitations as a site for publishing open content: there
is limited facility for the addition and display of metadata on each file;
iTunesU is hidden from principal search engines; use of the site is dependent
on installation of Apple iTunes (this is possible at the University of
Southampton only on request from our central IT services); management of the
site requires staff dedicated to this purpose; there are perceptions amongst
staff that iTunes is for audio and video material only, and that the site is
only for hosting material of exceptionally high quality (which puts-off
potential depositors). This mix of advantages and limitations means that
iTunesU is perhaps best used as part of a ‘holistic’ OER approach, which would
include promotion and use of other sharing sites, such as public social
networking sites like YouTube and Flickr, as well as academic repositories like
Jorum or HumBox. The high quality and promotional aspects of iTunes are
important ways of raising awareness internationally about UK HE and UK HE
resources and staff, and therefore should be part of any ‘open access toolkit’
in an institution.
Publishing on iTunesU offers a more supported way of
engaging with open practice because users can make use of established
university systems to help them navigate their way through issues around
publishing open content. For example, most institutions have lecture-recording
software widely available which facilitates the easy capture of content
suitable for publication on iTunes. From our experience, material intended to
go on to an iTunesU site is moderated for quality and copyright issues by
another university staff member before being shared on the site, which offers
reassurance to depositors fearful of infringing copyright, or doubtful over the
value of the material (fears which are often noted as barriers to sharing).
iTunesU would benefit from more readily accessible web
statistics. The key argument in promoting use of iTunes to staff and senior
management is that it has impact demonstrable by web statistics. If Apple were
to create an ‘administrator interface’ which gave access to a variety of download statistics, along the lines of Google Analytics, this would
improve its take-up and impact with potential users.
Use of
iTunesU has advantages and disadvantages for the sharing of open content;
however, it is an important tool for publishing a range of different OERs and
promoting the excellence of UK HE internationally. Effective use of the site
requires active institutional support, encouragement and guidance, and we
suggest that it is best used as part of a range of methods of engagement with
OERs.
We would like to hear from you and your experience of
iTunesU. Leave a comment below or contact us at llas@soton.ac.uk.
Kate Borthwick
LLAS Centre for languages, linguistics and area studies
Posts
