Pubicly Available Lecture Webcasts – e-Learning or Promotion Tool? Case Study

This paper aims to show how universities interact with internet users by webcasting selected courses. Paper has exploratory case-study character, presenting example of Berkeley Webcast initiative of University of California, Berkeley, webcasting undergraduate courses and on-campus events. On the base of short introduction to webcasting usage as an e-learning and promotional tool, the analysis of 3 purposely chosen different courses from Spring 2011 semester, with their content available on YouTube is provided. Timetables with number of views during research period for each event within selected courses are provided, as well as main audience description and geographical reach on the base of publicly available YouTube stats. Main conclusions from this analysis is that topic of the lecture influences importantly the view numbers and audience. Also after first two lectures number of spectators stabilizes, and public is more loyal. Estimated demographics suggest that important part of audience for each selected course were high-school scholars – possible prospects for universities. Geographical reach is global confirming proposition about not only educational but also promotional influence of webcasts. Additional analysis was performed to create a network map of videos with highest number of views. Result – the very dense network – may be perceived as a key element for generating new video suggestions to the users – which help them to get information about other courses and the university offer. Thus webcasting beyond being a tool for lectures delivery to students seems to be a very effective way for universities to expose their brands at an international level.