LONDON, October 1, 2009 – YouTube today announced that 45 university YouTube channels from six countries in Europe* and Israel, including the UK, will now be accessible through YouTube EDU www.youtube.com/edu, a centralised location where people can quickly and easily discover higher educational institutions on the site.
Universities on YouTube, like Cambridge University, The University of Nottingham, Leeds Metropolitan University, University of Warwick and The Open University offer a detailed portrait of academic life via online video. Yet their channels do much more than bring campus tours, athletic events and history montages to people: they connect widely-respected scholars with students and self-learners, regardless of geographic location or college affiliation, helping to promote the exchange of ideas.
“YouTube EDU is a global classroom where everyone – from those who want to see what university courses are like, to the intellectually curious, to graduates looking to reignite their studies – can watch and engage with a range of scholastic videos that have been uploaded by some of the world’s great universities,” said Anna De Paula Hanika, product marketing for YouTube in EMEA. “Our education destination and the addition of universities from Europe and Israel are direct responses to our community’s interest in this type of content and we look forward to adding even more institutions over time.”
A Cambridge University spokesperson said: “The University has compiled a wide variety of compelling videos, including the recently launched Cambridge Ideas series which highlights some of the novel and unique research it conducts. We are keen to make them more accessible to the public, and EDU hub is an excellent channel in which to connect directly to our key audiences.”
John Naughton, Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University, said: “As we move from a media ecosystem dominated by broadcast television into one dominated by ‘pull’ media like the Web, universities have to be where the action – and the demand – is. Given that the Open University has multimedia in its institutional DNA, YouTube EDU is an obvious platform for us and it’s good to see that a significant number of our European partners have come to the same conclusion.”
Dr Wyn Morgan, Director of Teaching & Learning, The University of Nottingham said: “In addition to our other open learning projects YouTube EDU provides a valuable glimpse into the excellent teaching and learning that goes on here at The University of Nottingham.”
Peter Woodbridge, Creative Multimedia Manager, Coventry University said: “Our YouTube branded channel has really helped us to communicate our work. It has brought profile and debate to our public lectures, brought attention to our research and helped our staff and students to communicate their ideas to a global audience. A number of academics at Coventry have even been invited to talk at conferences after being discovered on YouTube. Being part of the EDU project will enable Universities to share video resources more efficiently so this is a really exciting initiative to be involved in.”
Crispian Neill, Online Content Manager, Leeds Metropolitan University said: “We welcome the launch today of YouTube Edu. The platform offers us the means to reach a truly international audience, to inform and engage our educational partners across the world. It is very exciting to be a part of the evolution of what is effectively a global online campus, and we look forward to sharing the very best of that we think, feel and do with other members of the online community.”
Video Examples:
From science to Shakespeare, university social activities to Globalisation the videos cover a wide range of topics
Building on existing functionality like a Directory View that lists all participating university channels alphabetically, YouTube EDU users now have two new ways to find the university content that is most relevant to them:
As always, YouTube’s social tools enable people to rate videos, discuss them via text comments and video responses, and post them with the click of a button to social networks. These help academic YouTube videos appear in a variety of places across the web, get discovered by new viewers and gain popularity.
Both YouTube EDU and the inclusion of universities from Europe and Israel are the result of 20% time, a program where Google/YouTube employees to devote a portion of their working hours to a project of their choice
*France, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom
YouTube is the world’s most popular online video community allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. YouTube, LLC is based in San Bruno, CA and is a subsidiary of Google Inc.
Laura Scott: 0207 031 3049/ 0207 031 3130 press-uk@google.com
Labels: English (UK), UK news announcements
