What is iTunes U?

iTunes U is a free, hosted service for colleges and universities that provides easy access to their educational content, including lectures and interviews, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Based on the same easy-to-use technology of the iTunes Store, students can download content to their Macs or PCs, regardless of their location. They can listen to and view that content on their Mac or PC, or transfer it to an iPod for listening or viewing on the go. Like Blackboard, instructors can easily post and change content on their own.

At Virginia Tech, iTunes U is an easy way for faculty, programs, and departments to create and share multimedia files, such as movies and audio files.  It is a central location to access a variety of Virginia Tech podcasts, special lectures, and course content.

How do I access it?

In order to access Virginia Tech’s iTunes U site, you will need to

(1) download and install the current version of iTunes and
(2) access the Virginia Tech login site.

In order to download the current version of the iTunes software, visit http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/.

Once that is installed, you should be able to login to the Virginia Tech iTunes site by going to http://itunes.edtech.vt.edu/.

On this page, you will see two login options: one for guests and one for Virginia Tech users.  The link for the “Guests” will allow anyone to loginto to the Virginia Tech iTunes site and view any publicly-available material.  With the other option, if you login with your Virginia Tech PID and password, you will see material – restricted and public – that has been posted at the VT iTunes site.  Your system will then launch iTunes and you will be taken to the VT iTunes U area.  From there, you can browse through, download, listen and subscribe to the available VT material.

Who can use iTunes U?

Anyone can access the VT iTunes U site; however, some content is restricted, at the discretion of the faculty member who posts it requiring a VT PID/Password to view it.

Students will be able to use iTunes U to download course content, to keep up with course and campus events, and to listen to and watch special lectures and content of interest to them at Virginia Tech.

Faculty will be able to do the same.  In addition, they will be able to create and upload content to the site.  This will enable faculty to add specific podcasting requirements for their courses, to feature special lectures in their programs and departments, and to develop a suite of multimedia enhancements for their disciplines.  The uploaded content can be set to be private to a particular course or to the Virginia Tech audience, or it can be made public so that anyone can see what Virginia Tech faculty are creating.