Chris Palmer

Podcasting. A relatively new term that’s come to often refer to a short online radio program usually about comic books, harry potter, or tech news.

As many of you know, I’m always looking for a new way to expand my own knowledge base, and about a week ago I started to come across some interesting content. In addition to being entertaining, a podcast can also be used for something productive. There is a growing initiative among some of the large academic institutions in the United States. This initiative endevours to make the lectures of prominent university programs available to anyone online to consume. Apple has begun to index some of these offerings in their podcast directory, but that directory is still not comprehensive.

Below I will detail and provide links to some of the podcasts I have personally subscribed to from various universities (as well as some others that may be of interest):

Perdue University Boilercast

Perdue is the far and away leader in the space of educational podcasts. Perdue has branding their offering ‘BoilerCast,’ and it covers multiple faculties at various levels, including the hard sciences, social sciences, and business. Many of these podcasts are also available via iTunes.

AGEC 100 – Introductory Agricultural Business and Economics
AGR 101 – Introduction to the School of Agriculture and Purdue University
AGR 290 – Special Topics in Agriculture
ANTH 379 – Indians of North America
BCHM 307 – Biochemistry
BIOL 110 – Fundamentals of Biology
BMS 511 – Systemic Mammalian Physiology
BTNY 210 – Introduction to Plant Science
CE 350 – Environmental Engineering
CHM 111 – General Chemistry
CSR 342 – Personal Finance
COMM 435 – Communication and Emerging Technologies
ECON 210 – Principles of Economics
HIST 105 – Survey of Global History
OLS 274 – Applied Leadership
POL 130 – Introduction to International Relations
PSY 225 – Stereotyping and Prejudice

University of Washington

OCEAN 102 – The Changing Oceans
POLS 202 – Intro to American Politics
CHID 110A – The Question of Human Nature

American University of Washington

Various Topics – Mainly relating to legal issues. Description of recordings here.

Harvard University

CSIE-1 – Understanding Computers and the Internet

(This content was originally posted on Nov 21, 2005. Links may no longer work.)