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. You can download content to your Macs or PCs, listen to and view that content, or transfer it to a iPod for listening or viewing on the go. Instructors can create content for a course by recording lectures, developing assignments, creating videos and podcasts.

What is Podcasting?
Podcasting provides a convenient, subscription-based model for distributing course content. Podcasting makes your course content mobile and allows your students to subscribe to the course and have the content automatically downloaded as soon as it is made available.

How do I log in to iTunes U?
To log in to iTunes U, visit http://itunes.nmsu.edu/ and log in using your NMSU Username and password.

Are there examples of the iTunes U environment?
Yes, There are three universities with public iTunes U sites, UC Berkeley, Stanford University and the Fuqua School of Business.
http://itunes.berkeley.edu/
http://itunes.stanford.edu/
http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/itunes/

How do I request an iTunes U course?
Content for registered students:
To set-up an iTunes U course for your students only, please complete our iTunes U course request form.

Content for the general public:
To set-up a iTunes U course for the general public, please complete our public iTunes U course request form.

You will be contacted with information regarding your request within 72 hours (excluding holidays.)

Can an iTunesU course be crosslisted?

You must request a course for each unique course CRN. This means that you will need two iTunesU courses for two individual courses (e.g., a crosslisted course such as EDUC 417/517 would require two courses with two unique titles). You would then upload the same podcast to each course.

When can I see the iTunesU course I requested?

Courses are tied to the Registration system. You can upload your podcast to an iTunesU course during the active semester. Note that the course can be viewed only during an active semester.

How long does it take to get an iTunesU course?

Please allow 24 to 72 hours to get an iTunesU course created. Be aware, however, that you will not see the course until the active semester.

Why can’t I see the course that I requested?

If you are not the instructor of record or if the course is not associated with the current semester, you will not see the course. Contact the Registrar’s office if you are not the instructor of record.

Do I add students into my iTunesU course?

iTunesU courses are tied to the Registration system. This means that you do not have to manually add students to the current semester. Simply notify students that they have podcasts for their courses and direct them to itunes.nmsu.edu .

Can I use the same course for a new semester?

Courses can be rolled over to the next semester as long as you redesignate them prior to the end of the current semester. Go to the iTunesU Course Request form (URL GOES HERE) to make that request. You must specify the new course details such as course and section number, and this course must already be available through registration. Once a course is redesignated, it will no longer be available to the former semester (e.g, if you redesignate a Fall course to a Summer course and the current semester is Fall, a redesignation will remove the Fall view and the redesignated course will not be viewable until the Summer semester is “current.”)

Can I assign a graduate assistant to help me upload and modify my iTunesU course?

Yes, you can grant permission to persons who will serve as co-designers by going to the iTunesU Course Request form (URL GOES HERE) to make that request. Once the iTunesU administrator adds that co-designer to the database, you then go to your course and select Edit Access to give that co-designer permission to access your course.

What happens to my iTunesU course at the end of the semester?

The iTunesU course and podcasts will be deleted once grades are due for the term.

Are podcasts archived in iTunesU?

No, podcasts are neither archived nor saved. iTunesU is a hosted service by Apple and does not offer archiving services. Apple also does not offer any backup plan for podcasts should their server fail. As a result, it is strongly recommended that you maintain copies of your podcasts on CDROM and on your computer. This way you will always have your podcasts preserved.

Can students download a podcast from an NMSU computer lab?

Yes, students can download podcasts from a computing lab; however, podcasts are physically downloaded to the students MyDocuments folder. The computing labs allow students to download 50 megabytes of content to their MyDocuments folder. If a student is unable to download the podcast, he/she has probably run out of disk space or the podcast file size is larger than 50 megabytes.

Can my students upload their own podcasts or files?

Only course instructors can upload student podcasts.

How do I organize course pages and upload content?
To organize a Course page and upload content, you will need to log in to the iTunes U site. Your site administrator should provide you with your login information and instructions.

What are course pages in iTunes U?
Course pages organize the content (recorded lectures, assignments, videos) for your specific course page.

How do I upload files to iTunes U?
After organizing course content, you can upload the content into the different tabs in the Course page.

Apple recommends using an AAC format for audio or MPEG-4 format with H.264 for video for content that gets uploaded into the course tabs.

What are Tabs in the iTunes U environment?
Within a Course page, you can use editing tools to create tabs to organize the course content and then can assign permissions to each tab to control user access to the content. In addition to the tabs for course content, you can create tabs for students to upload their assignments and other work.

Can I link to other information from iTunes U?
In addition to tabs, you can add links in the Course page to point students to more information on the Internet.

Is there file size limit?

Individual files (podcasts or PDFs) should not exceed 200 megabytes.

What audio and video formats are supported by iTunes U?
iPod and iTunes support many formats, including MP3, MP3 VBR, AIFF,
Apple Lossless,WAV, AA, MPEG-4, and PDF (iTunes only).

Audio files: AAC, MP3 with appropriate file extensions (.m4a, .mp3).
For best results during playback, Apple recommends converting MP3 files greater than 32 megabytes (MB) to AAC format.

Video files: MPEG-4 with H.264 compression with appropriate file extensions (.mp4, .m4v, .mov).
For best results with iPod, Apple recommends using H.264. For more information on creating content for iTunes, please see, http://images.apple.com/support/itunes_u/docs/iTunes_U_Creating_Content.pdf