From human behavior to linguistics, audio and video lectures offered on Stanford’s iTunes U have been downloaded a whopping 50 million times.
The milestone, reached last week, comes nearly seven years after Stanford became the first university to give the public access to campus lectures, concerts and courses through iTunes U.
“It shows there is a huge appetite for high-quality educational content,” said BRENT IZUTSU, the senior program manager for Stanford on iTunes U, or SoiT. “And that will only grow as more people look online to supplement their education.”
The courses attract everyone from high school students and mid-career professionals to retirees, Izutsu said.
The most popular offerings are in engineering, where students can learn to build an iOS app or study quantum physics under one of the fathers of string theory, LEONARD SUSSKIND.
But more than 100 collections of course lectures in subjects including entrepreneurship, American history and clinical anatomy are available through Apple’s iTunes store. There also are 13 full courses offered on the iTunes U app that include assignments and supplemental reading material.
Students do not receive credit or certificates of study for taking the courses.
Apple formally launched iTunes U in 2007, two years after it tested the site in collaboration with Stanford and several other pilot schools. By January, iTunes U had logged more than 700 million downloads, with Stanford’s content among the most popular.
BY BROOKE DONALD
