The Black Eyed Peas, Eminem and former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle are together at last, on an iPod near you.

It’s certainly possible, because of a recently-announced partnership between the ISU Lectures Program and Instructional Technology Center.

Lecturers who give permission will now be recorded and their lectures placed on the Lectures Program Web site as podcasts, available for students and the public to download on their computers and iPods.

John Tillo, senior in political science and president of the Committee on Lectures, said student input helped lead to the new podcasting program.

“The decision behind it was basically student-driven,” he said. “People had been asking for it.”

The podcasts are an expansion of a process that has been in place for several years, said Jim Twetten, communication manager for the center.

“We’ve been recording lectures for years, and those are available in the library,” he said. “Converting them to RSS for the podcasts is a really simple process.”

The process is simple enough that most lectures are up within 24 hours. There are some restrictions, however. Not all lectures are available as podcasts, and some can only be downloaded from computers on campus.

“The lecturer has to sign a release form – a few have said ‘No,'” Twetten said. “Some have asked if they can be restricted to campus.”

Tillo said other possible setbacks have not developed, as feared.

“First I thought students would listen to the podcast instead of coming to the lecture,” Tillo said. “But we haven’t seen a drop in student attendance.”

Twetten agreed the program has been beneficial to both sides, since it allows the center to experiment.

“We’re investigating different ways to have podcasting on campus, whether or not that’s something people want,” he said.

If successful, podcasting will continue and possibly even expand to classroom use.

“Some professors are already doing this on their own, through WebCT,” Twetten said. “I’d like to think we would have a centralized service in place by next fall.”

Of course, whether that happens is all a matter of money.

“We have the technology, it’s just a matter of funding,” Twetten said.

The main costs associated with podcasting are the price of labor for recording and coding and the cost of continuing to host the podcasts online.

“Because the cost is minimal, I’d like to see it continue,” Twetten said. “But we’ll see what happens in the next budget process.”

There are some possibilities for outside hosting of podcasts that would help reduce costs.

“Apple has announced a program called iTunes University, and we’re investigating whether that’s a good thing for Iowa State,” Twetten said.

Tillo said he believes, overall, the program will continue to be beneficial to students.

“In general I think it’s a good thing more than a bad thing,” he said.

The podcasts are available by going to the Lectures Program Web site at www.lectures.iastate.edu.