UC Berkeley Press Release

Campus launches YouTube channel

By Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations | 03 October 2007

BERKELEY – Further expanding public access to its intellectual riches through the most popular Web destinations, the University of California, Berkeley, announced today (Wednesday, Oct. 3) that it is making entire course lectures and special events available, free of charge, on YouTube.

UC Berkeley is the first university to make videos of full courses available through YouTube. Visitors to the site at youtube.com/ucberkeley can view more than 300 hours of videotaped courses and events. Topics range from bioengineering, to peace and conflict studies, to "Physics for Future Presidents," the title of a popular campus course. Building on its initial offerings, UC Berkeley will continue to expand the catalog of videos available on YouTube.

"UC Berkeley on YouTube will provide a public window into university life - academics, events and athletics - which will build on our rich tradition of open educational content for the larger community," said Christina Maslach, UC Berkeley's vice provost for undergraduate education.

YouTube is the leading online video community that allows people to discover, watch and share originally created videos. The video-sharing Web site allows people to easily upload and share video clips on youtube.com and across the Internet through Web sites, blogs and e-mail.

UC Berkeley has been a leader in the open-source video movement in higher education since fall 2001, when the campus's Educational Technology Services (ETS) launched webcast.berkeley.edu, a local site that delivers course and event content as podcasts and streaming video.

In April 2006, UC Berkeley launched its audio podcast program, making audio content available as free downloads through webcast.berkeley. On pace to deliver 86 full courses and more than 100 events, amounting to more than 3,500 hours of content in 2007, the program has expanded dramatically since delivering 15 courses in its inaugural year.

"YouTube's ongoing innovations create a great environment in which students and lifelong learners alike can discover, watch and share educational videos," said Ben Hubbard, ETS co-manager of webcast.berkeley. "We are excited to make UC Berkeley videos available to the world on YouTube and will continue to expand our offerings."