10 University Collections on YouTube

[NOTE: Be sure to see our updat­ed page: 70 Intel­li­gent YouTube Video Col­lec­tions]

Since Octo­ber, uni­ver­si­ties have been get­ting busy and set­ting up shop on YouTube, enough so that it seemed worth putting togeth­er a col­lec­tion of what’s out there. As you’ll see, uni­ver­si­ties aren’t always using YouTube to dis­trib­ute edu­ca­tion­al con­tent to the out­er world. It’s some­times about that. But it’s also often about “sell­ing” the uni­ver­si­ty — about PR, in short. Below, we’ve put the more mean­ing­ful col­lec­tions at the top of the list. Over time, we’ll add new video col­lec­tions as they come online, and we’ll con­tin­ue to dis­tin­guish the good from the only so-so col­lec­tions.

1.) Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia — Berke­ley: This chan­nel was launched in Octo­ber, and it con­tains over 300 hours of aca­d­e­m­ic pro­gram­ming. Most notably, you’ll find here a series of uni­ver­si­ty cours­es that can be watched in their entire­ty (for free). It’s a deep col­lec­tion worth start­ing with.

2.) MIT (Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy): It’s a new col­lec­tion and it already has some good meat to it. Click here and you will find clips from class­room lec­tures, many pre­sum­ably com­ing from MIT’s ambi­tious Open­Course­Ware ini­tia­tive.

3.) UChan­nel: Spear­head­ed by Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, this video ser­vice presents talks on international/political affairs from aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions all over the world. You can find a more exten­sive video col­lec­tion on the UChan­nel web site.

4.) EGS (The Euro­pean Grad­u­ate School): Here we have a video col­lec­tion on YouTube that includes talks by impor­tant theorists/philosophers of the past gen­er­a­tion — for exam­ple, Jacques Der­ri­da and Jean Bau­drillard. There are also some film­mak­ers mixed in — take for exam­ple, Peter Green­away and John Waters.

5.) Van­der­bilt: There’s hope for this chan­nel in the future. The ini­tial set of sub­stan­tive videos can be found here.

6.) USC (Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia): Find lec­tures here and videos of artis­tic pro­duc­tions here.

7.) Duke Uni­ver­si­ty: Bor­der­line col­lec­tion. Some inter­est­ing con­tent, and I’m hope­ful that it will improve over time.

8.) Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty: Heav­ier empha­sis on pro­mo­tion­al con­tent; less empha­sis on tru­ly edu­ca­tion­al con­tent.

9.) Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Saïd Busi­ness School: So far this is high­ly tai­lored to mar­ket­ing the b‑school and help­ing stu­dents through the appli­ca­tion process. This is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a bad use of the medi­um. But it’s not what we typ­i­cal­ly focus on here.

10.) Auburn Uni­ver­si­ty: Here’s a case of a uni­ver­si­ty using YouTube for most­ly pro­mo­tion­al pur­pos­es … at least so far. I’m told by the uni­ver­si­ty, how­ev­er, that the col­lec­tion is in its “infant stages” and plans for new, less pro­mo­tion­al con­tent are in the works. Keep an eye out.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

• Open Cul­ture’s YouTube Playlist
• Free Uni­ver­si­ty Cours­es (via Pod­casts)
• Uni­ver­si­ty Pod­cast Col­lec­tion
• 10 Signs of Intel­li­gent Life at YouTube

Sub­scribe to Our Feed