Stanford iTunes project lets the public download school content

With Stanford University’s new iTunes project, alumni, students and the public can download audio of the school’s football games and special lectures. The free service is primarily for alumni who want to stay connected to the university, but Stanford welcomes anyone to download the content. Several dozen audio files are available and the university hopes to expand content to include more audio, video and possibly class lectures.

At many larger universities students can buy lecture notes for classes that they miss because of illness or other emergencies. Audio recordings would be a natural extension of those written notes. They could also help students who actually attend the classes by letting them concentrate on the professor and eliminating the need to furiously scribble down their own often illegible notes.

Currently, the Stanford iTunes project contains recordings of football games, special faculty lectures and class reunion interviews.