Curious to hear what a Pulitzer-prize nominee has to say about eating disorders?
What about a love story from a Beverly Hills chocolatier?
As Web 2.0 expands reach and shortens distances, Texas Tech psycology experts have
begun plying their trade to the world of podcasting.
The Department of Psychology has initiated a new educational podcast series, covering
a broad range of topics in psychology which include eating disorders, persuasion,
life stress, giftedness, consumer product usability and suicide.
The Web site was created by Texas Tech psychology professor Frank Durso. He initiated
and directed this project, along with the assistance of doctoral students Paul Derby
and R.B. Watts. Most of these topics will include a Texas Tech faculty member, along
with a prominent national expert on the selected topic.
"Psychology has a lot to offer," Durso said. "But it is often difficult to get the
information to the people who need it most. So I wanted to give psychology away,
and I knew iTunes and podcasts were a way to customize information to suit a particular
audience. I hoped we would reach a number of students interested in psychology.
I never imagined we’d be hearing from listeners in Japan or that we’d become the most
popular psychology podcast on iTunes."
Since the psychology department began putting up the podcasts on iTunes this fall,
it has received thousands of hits from all over the world, said David Rudd, chairman
of the Department of Psychology. Texas Tech’s psychology podcasts are one of three
university-based ones featured in the higher education section. Princeton and Harvard’s
also appear.
"Dr. Durso developed this idea of more community awareness in order to make people
more aware of what we’re doing," Rudd said. "That’s how it got started. It’s a great
tool for outreach. But people use them for all sorts of purposes. I’ve gotten emails
from one person in Japan, and they’re using them for translating from English to Japanese.
The students there love to use them because they’re interesting."
Rudd said these podcasts are available for use by the media. To access, enter iTunes,
click the education bar, then higher education bar and look in the featured sections,
look under Psychology Department at itunes.ttu.edu, or visit http://www.depts.ttu.edu/psy/psy.php?page=podcast.html
CONTACT: Frank Durso, psychology professor, Department of Psychology, Texas Tech University,
(806) 742-3711 ext. 230, or frank.durso@ttu.edu; David Rudd, chairman, Department
of Psychology, Texas Tech University, (806) 742-0818, or david.rudd@ttu.edu.