Is iTunesU a successful model of Open Educational Resource distribution?

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iTunes U:a successful model of OpenEducational Resource distribution?

SPIDER: Sharing Practice with iTunes U DigitalEduational ResourcesTerese BirdLearning Technologist and SCORE FellowBeyond Distance Research AllianceUniversity 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

Usable Useful Used Sustainable

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/institution ✔

Linux, Android✗

Feedback✗ ✔

Not very repurposable ✗ ✔

Discoverability ✗ ✔

Community ✗

It’s all in the downloads

University Downloads

Open University, UK Over 34 million since June 2008

University of Oxford Over 9 million since June 2008

Coventry University 2.5 million in 2010 alone

University of Warwick 1 million Jan ‘09 – June ‘10

Snapshot via Twitter

• 5th – 10th March 2011

• 12th – 17th March 2011

• “iTunesU”

• 201 tweets– 154 English– 46 non-English

Characterising iTunes U TweetsCategory of Tweet Number

Use iTunesU material to teach others 6

Use for oneself – just interested 17

Use for oneself – learn something specific 17

Technical discussion 9

Academic discussion about material 41

General positive 34

Academic discussion OER-related 12

Negative - quality 3

Publicising 14

‘What is iTunes U?’ 1

Sample tweets

Sample tweetsBig 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 symbol…

@lifesatest spooky, had never heard of Khan Academy before today, now using one of their iTunesU podcasts in my teaching.

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.... http://tumblr.com/xol1su3i15

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

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-12Photo 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

• http://wiki.creativecommons.org/What_is_OER%3F

• http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/1780

• http://projects.kmi.open.ac.uk/itunesu/impact/

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