In 2007, Apple launched a new version of the iTunes Music Store which included an iTunes U link and 16 colleges whose podcasts can be accessed directly from the iTunes application.

In 2008 iTunes U was made open to “educational” organizations that are not universities, like the “Beyond Campus” area from the NY Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and others.

In 2008 the amount of schools partnered with Apple, Inc. to use iTunes U grew to a substantial amount as seen below.

NJIT on iTunes U information & launch page Bowdoin College Penn State on iTunes U Stanford on iTunes U Duke Digital Initiative – Open Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business Harvard Extension School University of California at Berkeley Sacramento State Arizona State University Texas A&M Ross School of Business at U of Michigan Santa Monica College University of California at Berkeley Queens University (Canada) Wellesley College Georgia College and State University Rollins College Radford College Gordon College Lafayette College Virginia Tech Guilford Tech Community College Concordia Seminary Otis College of Art & Design College of William & Mary Villanova University Florida Tech Ohlone College Texas Tech Wilkes University Seattle Pacific University Abilene Christian University Reformed Theological Seminary Southwestern College University of Michigan Vanderbilt University New Mexico State University Agnes Scott College Aquinas Institute of Theology East Tennessee State University UC – Davis University of Washington University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

James Welsh has created a wiki of participating schools at itunesu.pbwiki.com/

In 2009 there is a more extensive list of academic institutions available on the iTunes U site. Itunes U was opened up for non-academic institutions as well, which gave room for many more iTunes U sites.

You can look into the link below, which will provide you with the iTunes U main site and will give you all details regarding content in the iTunes U world of iTunes.

deimos3.apple.com/indigo/main/main.xml

At the moment (April 2009) there are 177 academic institutions available on iTunes U sites.

The list of these sites can be found at;

In addition there are 12 different K-12 projects online in iTunes U.

And we can find 56 museums, foundations scientific institutions.

There has been an explosion in iTunes U sites in the last 6 months time.

All in all, there are 245 iTune U sites with scientific purposes at writing of this article (April 2009).

There are today 33 different categories of iTunes U sites available, which covers a large range of interests.

It is fair to say that iTunes U has caught on and become a signifcant information and knowledge database for various purposes. What remains to be seen is whether these sites are being utilized and that they have the effect it was intended for.

There has been published very little information about statistics of usage of these sites and how much people are actually using the material available to them.

Another aspect to these sites, are its ease to find information, as the search engine in iTunes U is not optimal for search about material you need to find information about.

The concept of iTunes U is nice, and it has potential. If it can be combined effectively with the makings of serious applications for the iPhone, iPodTouch or its like, then we will see a larger potential than today. Being able to do various experiments or interactive training, combined with the electronic distribution of material will create a new scenario, which will have the potential to reach a larger crowd.

There are at the moment over 30,000 applications already developed for the iPhone and iPodTouch. The technology does not stop advancing and this is just another way technology opens up methods of delivery of content, information and knowledge. Podcasts are, by now, common ways of delivering sound, but it’s not graphical or interactive.

 Several University are offering free training on various topics and the list seems to be exploding.

You can just download a training module to your iTunes, which most of us have that at home, don’t we?

All it takes is for some enterprising organisation to develop some advanced learning applications for the iPhone and we have the new ultimate in distributed digital learning and it’s in your pocket.

Students could download tools we have developed, from the corporate iTunes server, to receive training, information updates or any other packages that we consider to be useful to their learning. After all, hand-held devices are being used increasingly in the production, field domain.