Web Strategy and Development Blog

iTunes U courses now available

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The new iTunes U Course Manager is now available  to any instructor who would like to create private courses for their own students. Instructors can sign up for iTunes U Course Manager, create courses, and invite students to enroll. New instructors can create up to 12 courses with up to 50 students per course, and they receive 20GB of space for their course content.

Affiliation with Missouri State on iTunes U

Instructors can also affiliate their courses with Missouri State on iTunes U and submit them for publication. Affiliation makes a course available to the general public, and provides instructors with unlimited courses, enrollment, and storage.

Introduction to Poetry course

Please see the following courses for examples of courses affiliated with Missouri State on iTunes U:

Additional resources

New iTunes U Site

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We recently updated the Missouri State on iTunes U site to utilize Apple’s Public Site Manager, which is a new method for uploading and managing all of our multimedia content on iTunes U. This change also means that the design and layout of Missouri State on iTunes U is also now updated to better reflect recent changes in the iTunes U Store, with more options for us to feature specific content and better organization through the use of iTunes categories and tags.

I’d like to now focus on a few of the new features available in Missouri State on iTunes U:

  • Web previews of content collections – you can now preview a collection in your web browser without even having to open the iTunes software. View Great Ideas in Psychology to see an example of this new web preview.
  • Ratings and reviews of content – content in iTunes U can now be rated and reviewed by users. This is also reflected in the new Top Downloads section on the Missouri State on iTunes U homepage.
  • Categories and tags – content can now be categorized in two ways: under the default iTunes categories, as well as under custom categories. An example iTunes category is Humanities while an example custom category is About Missouri State.
  • Custom features on the homepage – it is now possible to highlight selected items or content collections on the homepage. These new custom features are completely customizable and are a great way for us to highlight specific content.

On a separate note, Missouri State instructor Todd Daniel started a new psychology podcast series last week titled The Story of Psychology. Todd’s previous podcast, Great Ideas in Psychology, has been extremely popular with iTunes U users, and we’re sure his new podcast will also be very successful. This week, Apple took note of the new podcast and designated it as the main featured collection on the iTunes U homepage. Congrats to Todd on another great podcast!

Missouri State Featured in iTunes U

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Lora Hobbs in iTunes UOver the past year, Apple has featured Missouri State courses from many professors, including Joe Hughes, Karl Kunkel, Todd Daniels, Tom Wyrick, Daniel Kaufman, Sam Dyer, and Robert Bradley.

Right before Thanksgiving, Apple began running a large feature on Lora Hobbs’ Introduction to Religion course; this was the first large feature for Missouri State.

National Impact

iTunes U promotes Missouri State on an broad scale. Several professors have commented how they receive frequent praise, comments and questions about their courses on iTunes U, from across the U.S. and beyond.

Learn More

To learn more about iTunes U, including how to become a contributor, please visit the Missouri State on iTunes U web site.

New Media Support

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The Office of Web and New Media recently overhauled our new media support web site. It now offers guidelines, recommendations, examples and resources on a variety of social media and multimedia topics:

Twitter Support

YouTube SupportWe’ll continue to update and enhance these pages.

You can also keep up with new media (and web) tips and resources by subscribing to the Web and New Media blog, following MSUWEB on Twitter or referencing our Delicious bookmarks.

Missouri State courses featured in iTunes U

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Missouri State currently has a podcast as well as two courses featured in iTunes U. Todd Daniel’s Great Ideas in Psychology podcast is featured on the homepage of iTunes U, while Dr. Wyrick’s Principles of Macroeconomics and Dr. Kaufman’s Introduction to Philosophy have been featured in this month’s iTunes U Spotlight.

itunes_intro

Congrats and thank you to our faculty members who provide us with great audio and video content for iTunes U. If you’re interested in becoming a content provider for Missouri State on iTunes U, please visit our iTunes U page to learn more, as well as the Contribute to iTunes U page when you are ready to submit content.