UCL launched their site on iTunes U in June 2008 after being approached by Apple for a pilot test in 2007. They began with around 150 items of content and have grown to over 1,500 items with about 12,000 downloads per month. Their iTunes U program is structured into three parts - Online Media, iTunes U, and Lecture Capture - all overseen by a Teaching & Learning Support Sub-Committee. They plan to further develop their private site, redesign their public site, and continue expanding their Online Media Application which allows uploading of files to various platforms.

1. UCL and iTunes U
An institutional study
Jeremy Speller
Director of Learning & Media Services
Briefing for Northern Italian Universities
30 March 2010

2. What we’re going to cover
• First toes in the
podcasting ocean
• How we came to be on
iTunes U
• VLE integration
• Where we are now
• Future developments

3. The World of UCL

4. The World of UCL
• Founded 1826
– The original University of London
• First to offer education regardless
of race, religion or gender
• Ranked 4th in the world
– 20,000 students / 8,000 staff

5. Now this looks interesting...
Apple ha sviluppato iTunes U quando Duke University ha fornito iPods ai propri studenti nel 2004, ed aveva bisogno di un
sistema per sincronizzare contenuti educativi.

6. Background
• Globalisation policy
• Strong academic lead
• Funding for pilot project
• Apple Podcast Producer
– On-demand recording
– Workflow
– Automated distribution
– Cost effective

7. Pilot project
• Identify champions
• Develop workflows to meet
academic needs
• Equip selected lecture theatres
• Make portable equipment
available
• Provide “best-efforts” support
• Survey staff and student opinion
• 18 months starting January
2008

8. LectureCast Biochemistry
32%
• Piloting since
September 2009
• 150 captured events
• 200 hours of material
Laws
• Over 12,000 3%
individual views Medicine
4%
Economics
3%
Special Events
3%
Chemistry
56%

9. The iTunes U bombshell!
• Approach from Apple late 2007
• Briefing February 2008
• Launch June 2008
UCL e’ stata approcciata da Apple per un test pilota nel 2007. Abbiamo lanciato il nostro sito iTunes U nel giugno del 2008.

10. Why we did it
• For the glory!
– direction from above: good and bad!
– coherent with UCL’s globalisation policy
• To further innovations in teaching & learning
– strong academic leadership

11. Gathering the team
Legal
• Signoff
– there should be senior
agreement to the
service you hope to
provide
• Contract agreement
– no payment but you
must be happy with the
agreement between
your institution and
Apple

12. Gathering the team
• Content checking
– do you have rights to Copyright
the media? and IPR
– can you get rights?
– do you have a
workable copyright
model (we used
Creative Commons)?
• Content release
– contributors must
agree to release their
media subject to the
rights above

13. Gathering the team
• Audio Visual
– lecture capture
• Design & Photography
– quality design will sell your
iTunes U site
Media
• Multimedia
– media creation and encoding
• Web Services
– RSS feeds and management
of the iTunes U site

14. Gathering the team
• Corporate message
– push the qualities of your
institution
• Corporate identity
– use to your advantage
PR
• Tone and voice
– do you have a key way of
describing what you do?
• Press
– close collaboration with
Apple PR and strong sell
from your own press office

15. Gathering the team
• Infrastructure
– backend storage Systems
– delivery of RSS feeds
• Authentication
– the means to integrate
with your own scheme
to pass credentials -
we used Shibboleth

16. Gathering the team
• Could be collective
– I did the technical and
media side - a group of Project
Management
four managed overall
– better if you can
dedicate someone for
the project
• Must be done!
– key to engagement
and GTD

17. Gathering the team
Legal
Copyright
Systems
and IPR
Project
Management
PR Media

18. The most important things
• Content
• Content
•Content
– Spreadsheet of ideal and realistic content
to launch
– Technical and legal pragmatism
– Workflow of responsibilities
– Keeping some back
Servono contenuti di qualita’! E ricordatevi di tenerne un po’ da parte per continuare ad aggiungerne dopo il lancio.

19. Workflow
Receive Podcast
h.264 .mov Moodle
content Producer
Streaming
server
Create Final Cut Encoding
Web pages
content Server Intro / Outro
m4a / m4v iTunes
storage
Approvals iTunes U
Feed
generation

20. Clear structure and layout

21. Attention to graphics

22. A way in

23. iTunes U in service
• Maintain momentum
– with minimal resource!
• Subscriptions
– weekly email content roundup
• Alternative methods of
delivery
– RSS
– Video portals

24. iTunes U downloads per month
30000
22500
May 2009
July 2009
15000
September 2009
7500
November 2009
0
January 2010

25. iTunes U private & Moodle
• Academic requirement
• Streamed video on-demand within Moodle
• Moodle link to course page on iTunes U
I materiali sono forniti con Moodle tramite Flash streaming e link alle pagine dei corsi sul nostro sito iTunes U interno.

26. iTunes U private downloads per month
3000
2250
May 2009
July 2009
1500
September 2009
750
November 2009
0
January 2010

27. Where we are Teaching & Learning Support
Sub-Committee
Online Media Programme
Board
Online Media Services Lecture Capture iTunes U
Podcast Producer development Pilot installation Site design
Web-submission interface Pilot testing Content administration
Flash server integration Podcast Producer integration Podcast Producer integration
Metadata standards Service development Automation
Metadata database development Service roll-out RSS / Web Services
Podcast Library Podcast Library
RSS/ATOM feed aggregation Metadata standards
Il programma di UCL e’ strutturato in 3 parti: Online Media, iTunes U e Lecture Capture, tutti sotto la supervisione del T&L
Support

28. Where we are
• Started with c150 items of
content
• Now c1,500 items
• About 12,000 downloads per
month
• About 250,000 since we
started
Abbiamo iniziato con 150 tracce ed oggi ne abbiamo piu’ di 1500, circa 12.000 tracce scaricate ogni mese e 250.000 da quando
abbiamo iniziato, 21 mesi fa.

29. The future
• Further development of private
site
• Redevelopment of public site
• Online Media Application
In futuro vogliamo sviluppare ulteriormente il nostro sito interno, ridisegnare il nostro sito pubblico e continuare a sviluppare
quella che abbiamo chiamato Online Media Application.

30. The Online Media Application
• Ingests and uploads user files
to:
– Streaming server
– Moodle
– iTunes U
• Collects metadata
• Allows users and admins to
view status of uploads
• Emails users admin actions to
keep them informed
L’Online Media Application e’ un’applicazione che consente l’upload di file da parte degli utenti su tutte le piattaforme che
adottiamo: streaming, Moodle e iTunes U.

31. Q and A
contact: j.speller@ucl.ac.uk
Images copyright © UCL Photography
iTunes is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries