23 January 2008
University Channels on YouTube Offer Educational Videos
University of California at Berkeley first to offer full courses
Washington -- Any doubts about the audience for educational video material have been dispelled by the experience of two University of Minnesota math professors, Jonathan Rogness and Douglas Arnold, whose short video, “Moebius Transformations Revealed,” has been viewed almost 1,300,000 times since its posting on YouTube in June 2007.
Offering educational wares on YouTube, a free video-sharing Web site, or Apple Computer’s university site, iTunes U, is the latest wrinkle in the fast-growing OpenCourseWare (OCW) movement sparked by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2001 when it announced plans to offer online access to educational materials for 1,800 classes -- virtually its entire curriculum -- free and open to all.
Today, more than 150 universities from six continents participate in the OCW movement, offering approximately 5,000 courses for free. (See related article).
YouTube’s development of an education category “is a direct response to our community's interest in this type of content,” said Obadiah Greenberg, YouTube’s strategic partner manager, in an e-mail interview. “As more colleges and universities upload content and create channels, we expect that Education will be a vibrant category on YouTube.”
A company founded in February 2005 from a garage in Menlo Park, California, YouTube became a phenomenon in 2006 as users flocked to the site to watch and share videos. In November 2006, Google acquired YouTube, which continues to operate as an independent subsidiary.
PUBLIC WINDOW INTO UNIVERSITY LIFE
The University of California (UC) at Berkeley became the first university to make videos of full courses available through YouTube in October 2007.
The UC Berkeley channel opened with more than 300 hours of videotaped courses and events on topics ranging from bioengineering to peace and conflict studies.
The first video in a lecture series on integrative biology with professor Marian Diamond has been viewed 89,000 times. The first in a course titled “Physics for Future Presidents,” with professor Richard Muller, has been viewed more than 128,000 times. And “An Introduction to Nonviolence” has been viewed 27,000 times.
UC Berkeley also makes available on its channel videos of interest to prospective students, such as one on campus life and a four-part series that provides a detailed tour of the Berkeley campus.
The university plans to continue to expand its catalogue of videos on YouTube with the aim of providing “a public window into university life -- academics, events and athletics -- which will build on our rich tradition of open educational content for the larger community,” said Christina Maslach, vice provost for undergraduate education, in launching the site.
Other universities launching their own channels on YouTube include MIT, the University of Southern California, Vanderbilt, Duke, Purdue, Auburn, and Washington University in St. Louis.
University of California Television also has launched a channel with a rapidly growing catalogue of interviews, lectures, debates, cultural performances and poetry readings. Subjects run the gamut from medical programs to opera. A significant number of the videos are in Spanish.
COMMUNITY DRIVES THE CONTENT
"YouTube is an open platform: our community drives the content on the site,” says Greenberg. “We see the YouTube education platform as an open field where anyone and everyone -- regardless of geographic location or college affiliation -- can learn. All educational institutions -- anywhere -- can launch a channel on YouTube."
YouTube’s popularity is due in part to its allowing people to upload and share video clips easily across the Internet through Web sites, blogs and e-mail.
The company says it is “committed to ‘internationalizing’ YouTube by translating services and features into each country's native language.”
YouTube is not alone in getting into educational video. Apple Computer’s iTunes U, a music and video downloading service inaugurated in spring 2007, hosts free material from 28 colleges.
Universities do not have to choose between YouTube and iTunes. Auburn University, for example, launched a partnership a few months ago with Apple that provides the university with a dedicated space on iTunes where faculty and campus groups can post information, including presentations and lectures for downloading. In January 2008, Auburn launched a YouTube channel, posting 60 videos of lectures and events as its initial offering.
The Moebius Transformations Revealed video is available on YouTube.
YouTube does not have a single page from which all the university channels can be accessed. Some sample channels are Vanderbilt University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Southern California, University of California Television, Duke University, Washington University, Purdue University, Auburn University and MIT.
Moebius Transformations Revealed (YouTube)