UIS accepted by Apple for listing in iTunes Store

The University of Illinois Springfield has announced that it has been accepted by Apple for listing in the iTunes Store, effective Tuesday, August 18.

Content from UIS is now available without charge to more than 200 million iTunes users worldwide, noted Munindra Khaund, multimedia education coordinator in the department of Information Technology Services at UIS. Being a part of the iTunes stores allows UIS to create a presence in front of more potential students, alumni and donors.

“The iTunes Store is a great social outreach and recruiting tool. It enables UIS to create a stronger presence and get our story out in an inexpensive manner,” Khaund said. “Our university is now listed alongside universities like Berkeley, Cambridge, MIT, Stanford, Yale, as well as museums and public media organizations.”

UIS has been an internal iTunes U campus in January 2007. iTunes U is a free, cross-platform multimedia distribution and learning environment system that provides easy, online access to educational content such as lectures, seminars and student assignments. Public access recordings from campus activities such as sporting events, news broadcasts, and concerts can also be made available through iTunes U.

Apple has well-defined guidelines for educational institutions that want to be included in the iTunes Store. Quality and quantity of podcasts is one of many criteria to be listed on the iTunes Store.

“When we first launched our podcasts on iTunes in the fall of 2005, we had one course podcast and one publicly available podcast. Now we have more than 25 course podcasts and 22 publicly available podcasts,” Khaund said. “Additionally, the 'UIS Guidelines and Policies for Podcasting' was the first podcasting policy in higher education, and as a result, several universities have contacted us to help them create their own guidelines for educational podcasting.”

More information on podcasting at UIS is available at http://www.uis.edu/sightsandsounds/podcasts/. To access UIS on iTunes U, go to http://itunes.uis.edu/.

To access UIS in the iTunes Store, open iTunes, click on the iTunes Store, then click on “iTunes U” in the menu at left. In the box labeled “find educational providers,” click on “Universities and Colleges”. On the “Universities and Colleges” page, find "University of Illinois Springfield” alphabetically under “U”. The public is also able to search for any podcasts from UIS that are publicly available by using the “Search the iTunes Store” box.

For more information, contact Munindra Khaund, multimedia education coordinator in the department of Information Technology Services, at munindra.khaund@uis.edu or 217/206-6764.