iTunes U: a successful model of Open Educational Resource distribution? SPIDER: Sharing Practice with iTunes U Digital Eduational Resources Terese Bird Learning Technologist and SCORE Fellow Beyond Distance Research Alliance University of Leicester

iTunes U: the coolest OER channel Photos courtesy RJ Lammers, LHG Creative Photography, Flickr

iTunes U: the coolest OER channel Born digital Multimedia Made for mobile Apple gloss

What’ll we talk about? A bit of history and facts Is iTunes U an OER channel? Elements of success Futuregazing Photo courtesy of quiroso on Flickr

iTunes U for University

Power Search

Way back in 2005…

Not just universities

Is iTunes U OER?

What is OER? OER Commons: “Open Educational Resources are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse, without charge. OER often have a Creative Commons or GNU license that state specifically how the material may be used, reused, adapted, and shared.”

Under the category “OER Tools and Services” Services” Yuan, L., MacNeill, S., Kraan, W. (2008) Open Educational Resources – Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education, Educational Cybernetics: Reports 2008, 35. Retrieved from wiki.cetis.ac.uk

Elements of a successful OER channel Attractive to contributors Usable Useful Used (and re-used) Sustainable Photo courtesy of San Mateo County Library on Flickr

iTunes U OER Success Factors Attractive to contributors UsableUsefulUsedSustainable Profile ✔ User Experience ✔ Quality material ✔ Download numbers ✔ Over 800 universities ✔ ‘Apple gloss’ ✔ Search function ✔ Consistency ✔ Teachers ✔ Apple ✔ International reach ✔ Apple mobile ✔ Copyright ✗ ✔ − Personal ✔ Benefit to contributors/i nstitution ✔ Linux, Android ✗ Feedback ✗ ✔ Not very repurposable ✗ ✔ Discoverability ✗ ✔ Community ✗

It’s all in the downloads UniversityDownloads Open University, UKOver 34 million since June 2008 University of OxfordOver 9 million since June 2008 Coventry University2.5 million in 2010 alone University of Warwick1 million Jan ‘09 – June ‘10

Snapshot via Twitter 5 th – 10 th March th – 17 th March 2011 “iTunesU” 201 tweets –154 English – 46 non-English

Characterising iTunes U Tweets Category of TweetNumber Use iTunesU material to teach others 6 Use for oneself – just interested17 Use for oneself – learn something specific17 Technical discussion 9 Academic discussion about material41 General positive34 Academic discussion OER-related12 Negative - quality 3 Publicising14 ‘What is iTunes U?’1

Sample tweets

Big Nerd Ranch 7 day iOS development course €3000, you’re havin a laugh, iTunesU is free This morning, Funding applications suck my soul of life, free lectures from Oxford on iTunesU help it heal #balance Hello iTunesU Where have you been all my life? No more watching random Mit lect on YouTube for me! If only my Mac made a heart spooky, had never heard of Khan Academy before today, now using one of their iTunesU podcasts in my teaching.lifesatest What if iTunesU were an accredited institution capable of confirming degrees & upgraded to have social/collaborative learning? Hmmmm jst figured out how to get all the lectures frm this class off of itunesU...guess who's gnna pass their test tmrw?!?! SPSS Tutorials - The University of Minnesota has an excellent set of SPSS (now PASW) tutorials on iTunesU Come visit me at the MI Learning booth in the exhibit hall from 11-11:30. Lear about free resources for MI teachers on iTunesU. #macul11#macul11

Other Impact ‘Apple gloss’ ends up encouraging OER discussion at institution PhD student applications improve Hits on university website increase Multimedia OER Mobile OER Beyond Campus K-12 Photo courtesy of superkimbo on Flickr

Futuregazing Photo courtesy of FHKE on Flickr

Streaming

iTunes U: Successful, with caveats ✔

References Yuan, L., MacNeill, S., Kraan, W. (2008) Open Educational Resources – Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education, Educational Cybernetics: Reports 2008, 35. Retrieved from wiki.cetis.ac.uk

This is the space allowed for the presentation title: up to 2 lines Speaker’s name Speaker’s title Department Name University of Leicester

This is the light background There’s also a layout for a title with a light background. And a layout for a plain slide and one with just a heading. If you need more layouts you can make extra masters. Go to Master slide view and create new ones. Marvellous isn’t it?