Over the past two years, Duke University has attracted a great deal of publicity for giving away iPods — first to incoming freshmen, then to students taking courses that made use of the devices. But as Duke prepares to enter the third year of its experiment with the trendy gadgets, campus officials have announced that they will no longer simply hand out free iPods.
Instead, Duke will offer two options to any student enrolled in a course that requires the devices: The student can either borrow an iPod, at no cost, for the duration of the course, or buy one at a discounted price of $99.
The latest shift in Duke’s iPod strategy marks yet another stage in the development of the Duke Digital Initiative, a project, born of the much-discussed iPod giveaway, that urges professors to find instructional uses for a variety of high-tech tools.
After passing out iPods to more than 1,600 freshmen in the fall of 2004, Duke officials insisted that the devices were to be used not just for entertainment but for academic work. Critics of the program, meanwhile, argued that the giveaway was a public-relations ploy, not a carefully considered educational plan.
The officials conducted a review of the project last spring and decided to continue handing out the devices. But instead of awarding them to freshmen, the university started giving iPods to students who enrolled in courses for which Duke’s Center for Instructional Technology had authorized the use of the devices.
At the same time, Duke rechristened the iPod project as the Digital Initiative — a program that helps professors use a number of technological tools, including iPods, tablet PC’s, and digital-video equipment.
As the initiative’s focus grew, so did the university’s success at working iPods into the classroom. According to a new review of the initiative’s second year, 47 courses this spring incorporated iPods, and Duke gave away 1,900 of the devices during the past academic year.
More iPods
But while more professors have sought iPods for use in class, the project’s budget has held steady. By offering the devices on loan, or at reduced cost, campus officials hope to provide iPods to more students and professors.
“We’re trying to scale the relatively fixed funding we have to accommodate a far greater interest than we could have imagined,” said Julian Lombardi, Duke’s assistant vice president for academic services and technology support. “But we want to make sure that students are able to participate in those courses without any additional financial burden.”
As more students with their own portable music players enroll, Mr. Lombardi said, there is less incentive for Duke to subsidize their purchase of the devices. “Like cellphones, these devices are pretty much out there, and in significant numbers,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense to just give everybody this idea of the entitlement of having these portable media devices.”
Duke’s decision might disappoint students who had their hearts set on free hardware. But it has received some good press from critics who had ridiculed the iPod project. Duke’s student newspaper, The Chronicle, derided the university’s initial iPod giveaway as a reckless waste of money.
Now it has applauded the university’s change in plans. “Duke invested about $300 in all sophomores and other students who enrolled in iPod classes,” read an editorial that ran in the paper. The most popular iPod — a model with 30 gigabytes of storage space — retails for $299. “But administrators have intelligently realized that students could receive the same technological-educational synergy at a much lower cost.”
Mr. Lombardi said Duke’s financial priorities would continue to shift as students bring new technology to the campus. “I anticipate that, within a very short number of years, students will be coming to the university with cellphones that are MP3 players, that can store 80 hours of video, and that are ubiquitously connected to the wireless network of the campus,” he said. “At that point, we won’t have to pay for these devices.”
http://chronicle.com Section: Information Technology Volume 52, Issue 36, Page A39
