My computer asked me to update iTunes this morning, and with the latest version installed a whim took me to the Music Store, then into iTunes U – Apple’s rather US-centric title for a huge collection of university lectures and podcasts, audio and video, from academic institutions around the world. There’s stuff from Otago, Yale, Stanford, Cambridge – and recently added, lectures from my alma mater. If you use iTunes and have an account at the Music Store (you can open an account by giving them a credit card number, but do not then have to buy anything) there is a huge amount of free material available for download. I have a couple of lectures from University of California’s Santa Barbara campus (UCTV) to watch: James Hansen giving the Nierenberg lecture at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute, and a lecture on methane hydrates. It’s a great resource – but be warned, you need lots of bandwidth to take advantage of the videos…
If you have any favourites from iTunes U, let us know in the comments.
Thats really awesome – thanks for the tip!