Podcasting Chemistry Lectures

Starting in the Spring of 2006 the Chemistry Department began to make available audio from some undergraduate chemistry lectures via podcasting. For the courses being podcast students are able to "subscribe" (for free) to these lectures and listen to them at their convenience on their computer or their MP3 player. We hope that this is a useful service for students who would like to listen to part of a lecture a second time or who may have missed a class. WARNING: There are no guarantees that a particular lecture will be available due to unforeseen technical difficulties.

What Is Podcasting?

Podcasts are typically MP3 audio files that you subscribe to with a podcast client. When new episodes are available, your podcast client is notified and the new content is downloaded automatically to your computer. Most podcast clients will transfer the new episodes to your iPod or other MP3 player the next time you sync your player with your computer.

Podcast files are located somewhere on the Internet. If you know their web address, you can often download the files with a web browser. The Internet technology behind podcasts is RSS (really simple syndication). RSS feeds are used by bloggers and other providers of regularly updated content. Subscribers to RSS feeds get notified of new content through the RSS client (or many current web browsers). Podcasts are special RSS feeds that have audio (or video) enclosures. Podcast clients are specialized RSS clients that play the multimedia files and interact with your portable player.

Some Technical Details

The recording process is completely automated and starts a few minutes before the scheduled beginning of the lecture and a few minutes after. Thus, there is some of dead time before and after the lecture. We do this just in case instructors start early or go a little over. Of course, listeners will want skip through this dead time. The recording is done through the lecture hall sound system, so a microphone failure or some problem with the sound sytem will result in a poor recording. Professors must use the microphone in order to get a decent recording. Normally, files will be uploaded to the iTunes U site within 24 hours of the lecture. It is our goal to automate this process as well so that lectures are available by podcast right away.

Podcasting Via iTunes U

Starting in the Summer of 2007, Colorado State University began a pilot program using iTunes U from Apple Inc. Free content from CSU, including course content only available to students, is now distributed via an interface very similar to the iTunes Store, the popular on-line store for music and video content. Go to the CSU iTunes U login page at

http://itunes.colostate.edu

Some content is available to guests, but most course content is only available after logging in with your CSU eID. Once you are logged in, you can listen to lectures through iTunes, download individual files to your computer (to be transferred to your iPod). You can even click on the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to the course as a podcast where you will automatically download lectures to your computer as they become available.

What Is Available?

The most recent chemistry lecture podcasts are only available through iTunes U. Sections of CHEM 103, 107, 111, 113, 341 and 474 from Fall 2007 and Sections of CHEM 245 and 343/346 from Summer 2007 are available.

Prior to Summer 2007 chemistry lecture podcast were available on the open internet. These can be found by searching the iTunes podcast directory using the search terms "Colorado State University" and "Chemistry". Sections of CHEM 103, 107, 111, 113 and 346 are available there.

How Do I Subscribe?

Here are instructions for subscribing to podcasts using iTunes from Apple Computer, which is a free podcast client available for both Macs and Windows computers. [Download iTunes]

Use a web browser to go to the CSU iTunes U login page. Once you log in iTunes will open and take you to the CSU iTunes U home page. To listen to Chemistry lectures, click on the Chemistry icon in the COURSES section. Once you are at the Chemistry courses page, select the course you want. Click on the lecture you want to hear, or click on the "Get" button to download it to your computer. Alternatively, you can click on the "Get Tracks" button or the "Subscribe" button to download all the tracks or subscribe to the course as a podcast.