University Podcasts: The New Video Wave on iTunes

When universities first started developing their podcast collections, a good number took their audio archives — the many lectures and talks they had recorded over the years — and uploaded them onto iTunes. Now, months later, some institutions are turning to their video archives. Most notably, MIT has given users access to video podcasts taken from its ambitious OpenCourseWare initiative. (Harvard has done something similar with its series, Harvard@Home, although the collection is considerably smaller.) Moving these videos onto iTunes makes perfect sense. While it’s unlikely that many will watch these videos on their actual iPods, it seems safe to assume that new audiences will get exposed to these collections and be contented with watching these clips on their computers at least, or perhaps on Apple TV down the road. iTunes has become a dynamic marketing/distribution platform, with masses of users flocking to it and discovering new content along the way. For institutions like MIT, shifting content onto iTunes streamlines their efforts to get their content noticed, which makes the project a no-brainer with no downside. For more on the MIT OpenCourseWare initiative, click here. For info on the recent integration of iTunes U with iTunes, click here.See our complete University Podcast Collection.