{"id":312,"date":"2006-01-25T20:40:49","date_gmt":"2006-01-26T00:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/?p=312"},"modified":"2006-01-25T20:40:49","modified_gmt":"2006-01-26T00:40:49","slug":"postscript-on-itunes-u","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/postscript-on-itunes-u\/","title":{"rendered":"Postscript on iTunes U"},"content":{"rendered":"

D’Arcy Norman points out<\/a> that publishing content in iTunes U is better than not publishing it at all, and that in the end Apple doesn’t own exclusive rights to the content, so institutions are free to put the content up in any other way they want and in any format they want.<\/p>\n

I respect D’Arcy, and I wouldn’t accuse him of being an Apple apologist. In fact, the non-exclusive nature of the deal is one of the arguments the team from Michigan offered at EDUCAUSE when I asked them about the dental school project. It’s a key point. Nevertheless, I stand by my alarm, and ask that skeptics peruse (again) the iTunes U announcement page<\/a>. This is a commercial venture with clear designs on vendor lock-in. (As Jon Udell has noted, iTunes is a podcatcher with an axe to grind<\/a>.) If we lock ourselves in voluntarily because the deal (for now) is so sweet–school logos and colors on the front page, volume discounts on music, revenue opportunities, cool factor–we’re still locked in. This is the path of least resistance. Higher education should be stronger than that. I expect Apple is gambling that we are not. And once we’re on that path, we will only get weaker.<\/p>\n

Much of the buzz I see on Technorati about iTunes U is how cool and easy it is, how our development woes are over, how our work has been done for us. Will institutions, especially starved-for-cash public schools, be willing to fund home-grown open alternatives when they can make money on a home-branded, outsourced, turn-key operation like Apple’s? I doubt it. Apple doesn’t need de jure<\/em> exclusive rights. We’ll essentially give them away, de facto<\/em>. Much better PR that way, and the company gets to express its astonishment at any dissent, for after all no one forced us to put all our content in iTunes U.<\/p>\n

I don’t mind persuasion, but coercion is another matter, and coercion takes many forms.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Apple’s reasoning goes like this. Apple believes that they are in the best position to empower education. Therefore, what’s good for Apple is good for education. Q.E.D.<\/p>\n

I remain unconvinced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

D’Arcy Norman points out that publishing content in iTunes U is better than not publishing it at all, and that in the end Apple doesn’t own exclusive rights to the content, so institutions are free to put the content up … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4bHwM-52","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}