OSU lectures, research available through Web site

Oregon State University's mission as a land grant university dating back to the 19th century has evolved into a pledge to promote "economic, social, cultural and environmental progress for people across Oregon, the nation and the world through our graduates, research, scholarship, outreach, and engagement."

Chester Bateman believes that outreach should include evolving technology, and OSU is moving boldly ahead with a new way to share its wealth of ideas and research online.

Bateman's research focuses on lead users and learning. That means people who are ahead of the pack in using products or technologies. They find ways to enhance those services or products before they're in general public use. His research focuses on users who take advantage of online innovation and communities, especially in an educational context.

For nearly two years, Bateman has been championing the idea of a partnership between OSU and Apple that follows in the footsteps of University of California, Berkeley, as well as MIT and Stanford. He met with Apple innovators several times. By using an online platform called iTunes University, those universities have been offering listeners and viewers the chance to download lectures, watch university-created videos and listen to podcasts by students and faculty.

Such features automatically can be downloaded to a computer, Blackberry, iPod or other digital device. It also links the university with one of the world's most recognized media names, Apple.

"Apple ranks in the top three brands in the world in innovation," Bateman said.

Its proponents hope to do a soft launch of the iTunes U platform this fall, and then once they build up content, including videos and podcasts, an official launch will follow later in the school year.

Using the site will be free, but it will cost staff time to create projects such as videos or podcasts to post to iTunes U. However, because many departments at OSU are already doing things such as making videos of research projects, or recording guest lectures, it will be easy to upload those files onto the site.

Bateman just returned from an invitation-only conference at Harvard Business School, co-sponsored by MIT, which focused on open and user innovation, during the business school's centennial celebration.

He spoke with international leaders in the field about how innovation often springs from the people using the new technology, as opposed to the old model, where designers created a product that was then passively used by purchasers or users.

A good example of this new approach is open source software that allows users access to new technology, which they can then tweak, expand or otherwise alter to improve the final product.

"Increasingly in the Internet age, the source of ideas for innovation can surface from inside or outside your firm or university," Bateman said.

David Baker, director of Web Communications at Oregon State University, is excited about the possibilities iTunes U presents for faculty and students.

"We already have departments and colleges using iTunes to distribute their products," Baker said, and iTunes U will simply be a place to collect all those digital projects together in one space. While he understands that there are some hesitations to give public access to things like lectures and research, Baker believes that once people become familiar with the technology, they'll recognize it as a valuable tool.

This summer, the iTunes U planning committee at OSU, including Bateman, finally got the green light to proceed

For more information, see http://oregonstate.edu/~bateman/blog/.

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Oregon State University already is exploring the possibilities of the Internet in many ways, including its latest Web-based project, a You Tube channel featuring educational videos from faculty and students. To view some of their work, see www.youtube.com/oregonstate.