I found your blog post as a result of doing some research for our university regarding iTunesU and I found it very interesting. Personally, I feel iTunesU is a great platform but I think people need to consider the investment/resources required before jumping into developing for this platform.
I’ve created the following post on the subject on my blog: http://digitalineducation.blogspot.com/2010/10/is-itunes-u-next-essential-step-in.html
(PS – referenced your post here in my blog as I think it provides an excellent snapshot of UK university activity in this area.

regarding the cost implication sof setting up an iTunes U site: I also understand from the person responsible for getting the Oxford site up and running, that this was indeed a signinficant piece of work whivch had exercised two people full time for 6 months each to get the site up and running – so that’s a person year for a kick start. They then advertised another post to carry on the work so that gives us a bit of a clure what might be required. When Apple unveiled the service and started canvassing for people to sign up for a site, they were suffesting (actually demanding) that they would only give Univerfsities a site if they could demonstrate that they had more than 400 indivisual pieces of content ready to go, and had a recurrent policy of creating new materials and keeping the materials circulating so as to keep the sites buoyant and dynamic. I was responsible for undertaking an analysis of whethe we should go down the iTune U route this time last year here at Sheffield. the problem for us (we were having a few “local ” issues at the time liske a voluntary redundancy exercise and a restructuring of our media department) was that the setup cost in terms of human resources was just too high. The essential forts step in doing this for an Instituion is to do a content audit of what suitable material you already have – and for us at the time, even this was too big an undertaking given the pressure we were under. Of course once the material has been audited, it then needs physically locating, collating, transcoding (if you have the right kit), uploading, metedata-ing (?), and then the iTunes U site (which remember folks isn’t a hosting service by default, just an RSS farm) needs setting up, populating with RSS feeds etc. And then there’s the rights clearence issues and the fact that someone really needs to sit down and “clea” all the stuff to make sure there’s no defamation etc etc. So it’s a big job.

Apple have now lowered the number of items needed to sign up so it should be less onerous now (I think about 125 will get you up and running). What both peter Scott (OU) and Peter Robisnon (OUCS) will tell you about all this though is that whast your Institution really needs to do is to look at the big picture with all of this. Both Institutions had a clear strategic aim about how they wanted to distribute media, and services such as iTunes U or indeed YouTube should really just be regarded as “channels” – diffrenet channles have different audiences and that to be comprehensive and inclusive, uyou need to have a presence on both. Some content will be appropriate for one, some another, and some for both. So this needs though as it will have technical and infratsructural implications for how this is tackled. At both Oxford and the OU I’m pretty sure they both have their own delivery infracstructure that sits outside of any external service, allowing easy re-use etc. As I said above, iTunes U is really jst an RSS farm, by which I mean it doesn’t normally hold the actual content, but just points at it, admittedly in a very nice inteface that can be very well branded.

all the best

Graham

My position on the use of iTunes continues to, err… ‘evolve’ :-)

Provided that there is no disenfranchisement of parts of the target audience by the choice of iTunesU and provided there is no confusion introduced in the way material is cited (part of the Web-friendlyness argument you refer to above), i.e. different lecturers citing different channels to the same content, then I don’t have a problem with it – or, at least, any problems I do have with it are only based on pure religious intolerance on my part! :-)

Apart from anything else, it is hard to knock success and I can’t argue that use of iTunesU isn’t successful.

I do think it is interesting to compare institutional use of iTunesU with their use of, say, YouTube, which you talk about in your most recent post. With YouTube there is no need to build a completely parallel route to the content because it slots into the Web architecture seamlessly – everyone sees the same content by the same route – everyone cites the material in the same way. I think this is a much healthier approach.

Also, I’m trying to work out what the benefit of syncing the content really is (as opposed to it just being available, regardless of source) – who would be doing this? I’d love to have figures.

1) iTunes itself is open (on the basis that it offers a RESTful, XML API)

2) users who don’t own Apple hardware can access the same content via other routes (e.g. thru some kind of Web interface).

I struggle with both arguments tbh.

With 2) I worry that the overarching emphasis of sites who have bought into iTunesU is that they have bought into iTunesU – the other routes to content are presented as secondary to that. To me, that implies that users and lecturers who choose to use that route are somehow second class citizens of the institution.

But, I accept this is partly a religious argument and I’m probably being unfair.

I’m happy that individuals opt to buy into these kinds of systems – I do myself for example – I think it is more of a concern when large, supposedly ‘open’, institutions do so… in much the same way that opting for Microsoft-only solutions was not a good thing in the past.

There are rules about what you can put on to iTunes you – in typical Apple fashion it is to “preserve the user experience” When governments try to restrict educators, we march and we boycott. When Apple do it, in 8pt Helvicta with a check-box at the end, we march in happily with our eyes on the shiny stuff. And now we’re in, how do we get out when those conditions change again?

I can understand why University marketing teams are interested in iTunes U – it’s the benefits of OER, tied in to a globally recognised brand (maybe some of that cool will rub off, huh?) and none of the concern that you are actually giving content away for others to reuse in forms you may not approve of.

I’m at a loss why academics and learning technologists are so keen. Maybe I should buy an iPhone – would I understand then?

Also – those who have investigated use of iTunesU know that Apple make fairly strict demands of institutions that some rile against. They insist on clear project management on the part of the institution to ensure that “quality” is maintained. You could say that they want to make sure that you make them look good :). I’m not saying this is a good or bad thing (I could argue passionately either way here) but folks should know that it’s not a simple case of applying for an account and uploading content. In contrast to, say, Google, that sees itself as a transparent supplier of services, Apple acts like a record company with all the global distribution channels sown up, and your institution is just one more “creative” hungering for the big time. Of course if it works, why fight it? It’s the same dilemma the world over.

I’d be interested to hear people’s opinions on this. Institutions like mine that don’t use iTunesU can be sniffy and say it’s the wrong direction in the long run, but until we provide compelling alternatives it’s hard not to feel like your just sulking. Even so – the way to make content accessible across platforms remains the same: the web. For open source web-based “independent label” alternatives to iTunesU consider Opencast Matterhorn and the Kaltura Community Edition.