University Channel

We would like to recommend the new University Channel to ISA Sections. The new technology (that Princeton has helped to pull together) is perfect for our members and also will be a great resource for our  students. It's along the lines that a visionary ISA committee (chaired by Matt Bonham), that was ahead of  its time, explored in the 1990s. The UChannel (also known as the University Channel) makes videos of academic lectures and events from all over the world available to the public. It is a place where academics can air their ideas and present research in a full-length, uncut format.

The University Channel service has been organized with 40+ founding members (Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Council on Foreign Relations, Royal Society, London School of Economics, Beijing University, Brookings Institution, U of CA system, etc.). It is free to users in all countries. It is open to contributions from all colleges and universities, research centers, think tanks and NGOs. There is an open invitation from Princeton  President Shirley Tilghman on the University Channel website:

One of the ways universities can serve the public interest is to make academic discourse on public and international affairs as accessible as possible.  The University Channel enables faculty and others at institutions of higher education around the world to present their ideas  unedited and unfiltered – to a broad and diverse audience.  I invite all academic institutions to participate in the University Channel and thereby to increase the scope and depth of public engagement in a broad range of timely and critical issues.

There's also a YouTube portal that provides a different user interface. It may be more useful for ISA Sections for uploading & tagging to create global virtual colloquia series to build larger-scale collaboration systems and accelerate scientific progress in their areas.

ISA Section members (& students of ISA members) might be interested to know that NSF, UC San Diego Computer Center, and the Public Library of Sciences launched in September another (free) YouTube global video service for technical science. Their project will also offer technical assistance to users, and evolving interfaces to support global virtual colloquia series that bring the best and latest ideas, from all sources, at an earlier stage in the creative process to the desktops of research scientists (in both the nonprofit and corporate sectors), students, and scientifically-trained members of the public in all countries as quickly as possible.