University Channel

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The University Channel is a consortium of universities that makes public affairs lectures available to a general audience by distributing free video and audio recordings in many digital formats - for streaming, downloading, and broadcast.

The collection includes events from dozens of universities around the world, all dealing with issues of public interest such as war, health, media, economy, and global developments. Speakers come from the ranks of academics, authors and policymakers, and their presentations are offered to the public uncut and unedited.

Individuals may access the material directly from the University Channel website, or subscribe to the podcasts via RSS. Programming is also made available to a variety of TV distributors, including IPTV (CampusEAI's Open Student Television Network(OSTN)), cable TV video-on-demand, and some of the public access television stations belonging to the Alliance for Community Media(ACM).

University Channel Charter Members are: Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the School of International and Public Affairs(SIPA) at Columbia University, Middlebury College's Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. The project was incubated at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and launched its website in July 2005.

The University Channel's focus is on public and international affairs because, as University Channel's Executive Director Donna Liu explains, "that is where the public stands to benefit the most from having access to the kind of well-researched, dispassionate, reasoned analysis that academia can provide." The content consists largely of unedited, full-length lectures, events and conferences that take place in academia.