Eastern is now an iTunes University.

Eastern purchased the iTunes University service early last month, and early planning is starting for implementation of the service.

“We are collecting names of individuals who may be interested in contributing to this initiative and plan to gather them during this semester,” said Blair Lord, provost and vice president for academic affairs. “How we roll this out will really depend on how the conversation progresses.”

iTunes U allows faculty and students to use the iTunes Store to search, download and play course content.

Michael Hoadley, director of the center for academic technology support, and the staff of the external relations department started the initiative to bring iTunes U to campus, Lord said.

“Our presence on iTunes University will provide another medium to share information about Eastern,” said Jill Nilsen, vice president for external relations. “The iTunes site will enable our faculty to upload lectures, podcasts and academic information about their classes.”

The service will also allow Eastern to develop information to prospective donors, alumni and parents, she said.

Chat Chatterji, assistant vice president for information technology services, said the service is available to anyone, including a non-Eastern audience, but added that the person, department or constituent who submits information can decide who can and cannot access the information.

“The access could be for public consumption or restricted via EIU net-login to an EIU audience, or to a class which a student might be taking,” Chatterji said.

The service will be available to both MAC and PC users, but no date is set for when the service will be available, he said.

Tracy Hall-Ingram, project manager of university marketing and communications, said an active launch date for the service will be announced at a later date.

The benefits of the service are limitless, she said. Students can use it to review lectures and faculty can present materials in a different, creative way, through podcasts, video podcasts and downloadable portable document folders.

“Once people start thinking of ways to generate new content, the options are only limited by our collective imagination,” Hall-Ingram said.

Students will be able to access the service by loading it onto their iTunes and running it on their computers, Chatterji said. The content could also be moved to a student’s iPod, he said.

“I am very pleased that the university is supporting this initiative,” Chatterji said. “It helps put EIU on the map, not just nationally, but internationally as well.”

Stephen Di Benedetto can be reached at 581-7942 or at [email protected].