Stanford on iTunes U

Believe it or not, over 300,000,000 iPods have been sold in the past decade, making the iPod and Apple’s music service, iTunes, a household name (no one says “mp3 player” anymore right?). Although iTunes is best known as a marketplace for new and popular music, what is less known is all of the amazing, free, non-music content that’s available. One of the little-known treasures of the internet is iTunes U, a section of iTunes dedicated to content produced by universities from around the world who’ve uploaded over 350,000 free recordings and videos of lectures, workshops and interviews. Stanford, one of the best known universities in the world, has lived up to its reputation by offering some of the richest content on iTunes U of any other institution. A recent story described how Stanford’s immensely popular iPhone and iPad app development course is now available for free on Stanford’s iTunes U page. Stanford’s original course on iPhone app development made history in 2009 by reaching the 1 million download mark in 7 weeks, faster than any other course on iTunes.

Though Stanford is known for technology, its iTunes U offerings are diverse and all of the major disciplines are represented, including business, history, language and mathematics, among others. The courses are set as podcasts so you can either download individual lectures or subscribe to a course to receive new episodes as they become available. Even the Hoover Institution has a channel on Stanford’s iTunes U, which includes interviews from our public policy internet program, Uncommon Knowledge. Given the rich historical holdings in the Hoover Library and Archives, I think there’s some room for growth to include some history-related podcasts. I feel another project coming on, what do you think? I strongly recommend that you check out Stanford’s iTunes U page or the content on any number of other university iTunes U pages. We’ve truly entered into an amazing period of the information revolution. The sheer amount of free knowledge that billions of people have access to is staggering. I strongly feel that we have an obligation to use that knowledge to make the world better by informing one another and learning about this amazing place we call planet earth. Time to get going! Have you listened to any podcasts from iTunes U?