iTunes U
May 2021 Update
Apple to discontinue iTunes U at the end of 2021
Apple has been hard at work building the next generation of apps for both teachers and students:
Classroom turns your iPad into a powerful teaching assistant, helping teachers guide students through a lesson, see their progress, and keep them on track.
Schoolwork helps teachers save time and maximize each student’s potential by making it easy for teachers to share class materials, get students to a specific activity in an app, collaborate with students, and view student progress.
Apple also offers Apple School Manager to enable IT administrators to easily manage Apple devices, users, apps, and books while ensuring data is kept secure and private. Apps such as Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand, iMovie, Clips, and Swift Playgrounds have education-specific features that are used regularly by teachers and students.
iTunes U will continue to be available to all existing customers through the 2020-2021 educational year, but Apple will discontinue iTunes U at the end of 2021.
To help you move from iTunes U to other solutions, Apple added the ability to export courses from iTunes U in August 2020. You can export your course content for use in Schoolwork, 3rd-party apps, or other learning management systems. Learn more.
What happens until the end of 2021?
iTunes U will continue to be available to all existing customers through the 2020-2021 educational year. Starting in May 2021, institutions and instructors can no longer:
Create new iTunes U instructors or courses.
Existing iTunes U instructors will continue to have access to iTunes U and can edit, share, duplicate, copy, transfer, and export existing courses.
Publish new public courses.
Existing courses are available for all subscribers.
For subscribers of public or private courses, no changes will be made until the end of 2021.
Note: In 2020, Apple removed the ability to create new iTunes U Public Site Manager sites in Apple School Manager.
For Publishers of Public Courses
If you publish public iTunes U courses, keep the following in mind:
Until iTunes U is discontinued, existing and new courses will still be available publicly. In the meantime, Apple suggests you look into alternative ways to reach your audience.
To continue publishing your content, you can use:
Apple Podcasts. To bring your content to Apple Podcasts, see Hosting Partners.
Apple Books. To author books, see Apple Books for Authors and Publish your book with Pages.
Be sure to download and save any individual materials you haven’t already backed up outside of iTunes U. Learn more.
To support moving your iTunes U course content, Apple added the ability to export course content from iTunes U. Click your instructor name at the top of the iTunes U window and choose Export Courses, then import your content to Schoolwork, 3rd-party apps, or other learning management systems.
Once you find a new place for your courses, add a link to it on iTunes U to make it easier for your audience to continue following you.
To help your audience continue learning, browse the following educational resources:
The Education category in the App Store.
Content from educational institutions and individuals in Apple Podcasts.
The Education category in Apple Books.
See Listen with Apple Podcasts and Read books and more with Apple Books to learn more about Apple Podcasts and Apple Books.
For Publishers of Private Courses
If you publish private iTunes U courses, keep the following in mind:
Going forward, Apple recommends using Schoolwork:
Apple added support for ClassKit to iTunes U so you can easily transition to Schoolwork.
Use
in your My Materials Library to download materials from your existing iTunes U courses to use in Schoolwork assignments. Learn more.
To support moving your iTunes U course content, Apple added the ability to export course content from iTunes U. Click your instructor name at the top of the iTunes U window and choose Export Courses, then import your content to Schoolwork, 3rd-party apps, or other learning management systems.
For Subscribers of Public Courses
If you subscribe to public iTunes U courses, keep the following in mind:
iTunes U will continue to be available to all existing customers before it is discontinued at the end of 2021.
Contact your favorite providers to find out where they will make their content available to you in the future.
To continue learning, browse the following educational resources:
The Education category in the App Store.
Content from educational institutions and individuals in Apple Podcasts.
The Education category in Apple Books.
See Listen with Apple Podcasts and Read books and more with Apple Books to learn more about Apple Podcasts and Apple Books.
For Subscribers of Private Courses
If you subscribe to private iTunes U courses, keep the following in mind:
iTunes U will continue to be available to all existing customers through the 2020-2021 educational year before it is discontinued at the end of 2021.
Contact your instructors to find out where they will make their content available to you in the future.