I’ve seen various posts on the internet regarding higher education podcasts, including lectures. Came across one on digg today about a University of Michigan department actually offering private podcasts through the iTunes music store to students. They state it’s a partnership with Apple. An interesting development and I think a slightly better partnership than the Napster shit some colleges are doing. I’d be interested in seeing how much piracy that supposedly prevents but I’ll leave that for another day. Partnering to offer actual content from the university is a nice step. I’d prefer it be open to all but know that many professors and universities are yet to that stage of openness. (I’m a big fan of MIT’s OpenCourseware)

With such partnerships occurring I’m wondering how long it will be before I can log into the iTunes store and check out audiobooks my library subscribes to? iTunes already has content from Audible though they would have to do some changes to take care of checkout periods, etc. Will be interesting to see how things develop.

Another question, are any libraries doing “podcast reserves” of lectures? We offer some audio/video tapes of lectures here though I’m uncertain how many professors would like their information online. We’ll wait and see.

BTW, the Thomson Peterson’s blog has quite a bit about syndication in higher ed.