By Julie FrenchThe Daily Northwestern

Northwestern is considering an initiative through the popular music service iTunes that would allow students to download podcasts of class lectures, according to a Northwestern University Information Technology official.

A growing number of universities are posting audio or video files of lectures, class notes and homework assignments online. But because the services don’t offer a good way to handle copyrighted materials, NU has not yet done the same, said Bob Taylor, NUIT’s director.

“We are reconsidering the iTunes university initiative,” he said. “We recently began discussions with Apple, but we haven’t made a decision yet.”

Computer science Prof. Chris Riesbeck began posting lecture notes and homework assignments online long before the current Blackboard system was available. He said doing so allows him to get feedback on his material.

“If it’s easy to do, I think it’s worth doing,” Riesbeck said. “But I don’t think anybody should be forced to go public.”

Weinberg Associate Dean Mary Finn said some professors, especially those in the humanities, said posting content online for free violates their intellectual property rights.

She said she posed the idea to several colleagues in the department at a recent dinner, but “no one could see what the benefit would be.”

“If the professor wants to do it, I don’t see any problem with it,” said Finn, who added that the material ultimately belongs to the professor.

Riesbeck said he doesn’t worry about losing intellectual property rights because Web sites can be copyrighted. He also said issues such as faculty feedback, classroom discussions and students being able to ask questions are much more important than any notes that would be posted online.

The University of California at Berkeley began posting streaming video of lectures in 2001 and launched their iTunes-sponsored service in April 2006.

So far only about 40 of Berkeley’s more than 5,000 classes are available on Webcast.Berkeley.edu, but that number is likely to increase, said Adam Hochman, the site’s project manager.

The school delays most webcasts for at least a week because administrators are worried students would be tempted to skip lectures, he said.

“(Webcasts) allow students to focus more on the lectures and take in all the most important points in class,” he said. “Then they can go back and highlight the stuff they’re interested in.”

The program raises the visibility of the entire university as well, he said.

The school’s history department attributes its recent record amount of donations to the popularity of its webcasts, one of which made it into iTunes’ Top 100 list of all podcasts, Hochman said.

More than 100 universities worldwide participate in the OpenCourseWare Consortium, another program that disseminates course materials. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the largest contributors to the consortium.

Steve Carson, the external relations director for OpenCourseWare at MIT, said the university expects to have virtually all of its 1,800 classes online by fall 2007.

MIT faculty were skeptical at first, he said, but the program has grown rapidly since its first 50 courses were posted online in 2002. The program remains entirely voluntary for faculty members, and about 80 percent of them participate, he said.

If one faculty member is unwilling to post lecture notes, MIT waits until another professor teaches the course.

The increased visibility of faculty and courses has helped MIT recruit top students, Carson said.

A survey of the 2005 freshman class revealed that half of the students knew about the site before enrolling. Of those, 35 percent of students said it played a large role in their decision to attend MIT.

“We’re encouraging schools everywhere to do this,” Carson said. “It would be a great thing for Northwestern to consider.”

Reach Julie French at [email protected].