The University of New South Wales in Australia is going to start offering some of its classes for free on the Internet.
USNW will publish lectures on its own YouTube channel, making them available to people who can’t afford to attend the physical classes, and also allowing existing students to access them without leaving home.
They are not the first university to do so, and are rather following in the footsteps of the University of California at Berkeley who announced last month that they would be making 300+ hours of course videos available on the video sharing site.
Patrick Stoddart, the manager of research and innovation in the university’s learning and teaching division explained the motivation behind the new scheme:
“YouTube is one of the places where our students are already at. As new students come through, that’s where we know they’re looking. It’s also to get the university’s content out there.”
The USNW channel started a few weeks ago, and has already had over 9,000 views. At the moment there are three playlists, covering Courses, research videos, and the student experience.
They are not the first university to offer this, and they certainly won’t be the last either. Any forward thinking organisation know they need a presence on the web, and where better to gain exposure than YouTube.
