I presented this poster at OER13 conference, Nottingham, 26-27 March 2013. It shows the main findings of my project iTunes U Reach, funded by the HEA and JISC.

1. iTunes U Reach – Across the Ocean
How do overseas students and potential students engage with learning materials in iTunes U,
and might this use impact their educational choices? The HEA- and JISC-funded iTunes U
Reach project investigated these questions by means of an online survey, focus groups,
interviews, and observations from University of Leicester’s iTunes U launch.
Terese Bird, Learning Technologist and SCORE Research Fellow, Institute of Learning Innovation,
University of Leicester tmb10@le.ac.uk Twitter: tbirdcymru
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Yes
No
Online survey N = 102
Do you, or have you ever, used iTunes U? by country:
Reason to use iTunes U Count Percent
Casual interest 7 30.4%
Learn specific topic 20 87.0%
Establish quality of
institution’s teaching
5 21.7%
Learn another language 4 17.4%
Other 2 8.7%
Have these materials
helped you to achieve
this aim?
No
21.7%
Yes
78.3%
No
39.1%
Yes
60.9%
As a result of your experience
with these materials, would
you consider studying at that
institution?
0
5
10
15
Yes
-­‐
phone
Yes
-­‐
tablet
Yes
-­‐
mp3
player
Yes
-­‐
laptop
No
No
preference
Do you prefer to access these materials using a mobile device?
Select all relevant options.
I searched for ‘team management’ but I got
‘Management for Dummies.’ Just snippets. I
would have happily listened to an entire
term’s worth of lectures…If a university is
really using this technology for students, I
would think, wow that is the way forward; I
might think to go there. --Germany, post-
PhD
Discovered iTunes U when I
got my iPad. I’m a business
major but very interested in
philosophy and physics. I’m
going through Yale’s
philosophy classes, watching
the lectures, then using the
notes and quizzes to test
myself. I’m turned off to audio-
only materials.—USA,
undergraduate
I am not sure how many
people know about iTunes
U, but we have our own
app, Open Courses 网易公
开课
which
takes
videos
from
iTunes
U
and
adds
Chinese
subItles.
Knowing
about
the
course
and
listening
to
lectures
would
help
me
to
decide
which
university
to
aLend.
–
recently
arrived
from
China,
postgraduate
I was struggling with some
concepts in pharmaceuticals
and found some University of
Aberdeen medical podcasts
which helped. I listened on a
waterproof iPod while swimming
in the morning. Medical schools
need to offer learning material in
personalised, mobile-ready
ways, because this is the kind of
learning students will expect. –
UK, medical postgraduate
Open Courses 网易公开课
How University of Leicester is doing iTunes U:
• Liaising with academics to find those who were already producing and willing to share
• Gathering and branding video, audio, text files – many from OER projects
• Meeting in a group of academic, technical, and marketing representatives to choose materials
of desired technical quality and good content
• Emphasising audio lectures and narrated presentations converted to mp4
• Working with distance learning instructors who are interested to share ‘lecture-like’ material
• Encouraging CC – BY - NC