Imagine it's 9 a.m. Your alarm goes off to wrench you out of bed for that 9:30 recitation. You keep hitting the snooze button and next thing you know, it's 11 a.m. and the class is long over.
But oversleeping no longer has to be your biggest fear.
If the Undergraduate Assembly has its way, in a few months, you'll have a backup plan: iTunes U.
iTunes U is an already released Apple-administered program that can store audio and video content - like a class lecture or student performance - for anyone to download to their computers and iPods.
The UA passed a plan of action on Sunday night that endorses the implementation of iTunes U at Penn and encourages information-technology departments to work with the University to get downloadable lectures online.
But some point to problems with iTunes U, which may make the UA's goals a little more difficult to achieve.
A study conducted by the University of Texas at Austin found that, while instructors can take steps to control attendance - like roll call or giving pop quizzes - the availability of webcasts detracted student motivation to show up to class.
Second, iTunes U is currently an entirely public site - you don't have to be enrolled as a student to access classes. And while it is possible to require a PennKey authorization, "the complexity level for creating course-level authorizations . could get pretty complicated," said John MacDermott, the director for instructional technology for School of Arts and Sciences computing.
Wharton senior and UA chair Brett Thalmann noted that "if [adding Pennkeys] alleviates professors concerns and increases content for Penn students," then the UA supports it.
MacDermott added that any seminar-style classes in which student voices are recognizable should be restricted to protect student confidentiality.
When some Penn instructors were polled by IT staff, they unanimously opted for tighter control of access to classes.
In the meantime, the University is working to find methods that would enable more classes to be recorded.
Outside of Huntsman Hall - which already has many rooms with this capability - only three lecture halls are equipped with the necessary technology. In addition, only three professors on campus are using portable recording systems in smaller seminar classes, MacDermott said.
The University already has a couple of recording systems in place, but iTunes U is different because the classes would be completely downloadable, said Wharton sophomore Jason Lee, who co-authored the plan of action.
But downloading, MacDermott said, takes a long time and uses a lot of space on hard drives.
If finalized, iTunes U would be fully functional by March or April. It would not have all of the academic capabilities until the fall semester, said College freshman Jon Lee, co-author of the iTunes U Plan of Action.
