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It's Monday morning and professor Robert Burk is standing in front of the 490 students in his first-year chemistry course. "Today we're going to do some more work on gases," he says, before diving into a discussion on the effect of pressure and temperature on equilibria.

Although he just gave the lecture in his classroom at Carleton University in Ottawa, this particular version is viewable almost anywhere, courtesy of iTunes, Apple Computer Inc.'s digital content website that sells music and video for the portable iPod device.

Carleton says it is the first university in the world to offer an entire course of video-recorded lectures through iTunes, for playback on iPods, cellphones, Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Portable and the common personal computer. "Students actually download the lecture as they would a song," Mr. Burk says. "These days, students simply expect to see what they need on a screen."

What they get, for free, is a complete record of classroom events, captured by at least two broadcast TV cameras that follow the professor's moves and comments. Either a switcher or the professor himself changes camera angles as necessary, including overhead shots of lab demonstrations and the text from slides and PowerPoint presentations. Despite the fact that the technology gives students the ability to gather all the lecture material they need without ever going to class, Mr. Burk insists it is not a slacker's tool, but a study tool.

"The classroom is still full," he says. "They are seeing more than they used to, and they're fairly responsible about it. I guess I browbeat them a bit. I tell them they're not going to get by pulling 36 lectures off-line the night before the exam."

The project began in October and includes half the term's lecture content. By next term, the plan is to have the full course load accessible through iTunes.

Livia Vander Dussen, a first-year student majoring in psychology, has been downloading every class as exams approach. She says the downloads give her a chance to review lectures she attended and take the pressure off her if she can't make one of the classes as her studying schedule fills up.

"It's so good to go over things that I just didn't get in the classroom," Ms. Vander Dussen says. "It's really one more thing that will help you get the information you need."

There's a certain coolness to the idea that has grabbed students' interest, says Mr. Burk, who thinks they are now actually studying more. "It's like the old toothpaste ads. If it tastes better, maybe they brush longer."

Apple doesn't store or host the content itself. The company's iTunes merely acts as a directory and search tool. With the massive success of the iPod portable media player, iTunes has developed a large community of individuals who come to the site looking for content for their iPods. Apple sells some of that material, including music and more recently TV and video files. It also lists plenty of free content, such as podcasts.

Other universities have used iTunes to podcast some of their lectures, but Carleton says it is the first to list complete, video-recorded lectures on the site.

The university would like to extend the project to other courses, but copyright rules restrict what it can do for the moment. While the law allows copyrighted material to be shared inside a classroom, it doesn't allow it to be shared across the Internet.

"We have to be really careful that all material is copyright free," says Patrick Lyons, manager of instructional innovation at Carleton's educational development centre.

Mr. Burk owns the material in his course and agrees to let it be put on-line. But most other courses use copyrighted content. Without amendments to the law, Carleton says it will need to apply digital rights management (DRM) software to other lecture material it puts on iTunes.

The university is in early-stage talks with Apple to license the company's FairPlay DRM tool, which limits the number of times a file can be copied or shared. "There seems to be some openness on Apple's part," Mr. Lyons says. "They're in a unique position. The have very fair DRM software, they have most of the market for on-line music and a great brand. But they need more content to sell more iPods."

Officials from Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., were not available for comment.

Mr. Burk, who started teaching in 1993, admits that distributing his lectures on iTunes has received a mixed reaction from his colleagues. "Carleton is a typical Ontario university, where most of the faculty was hired in the 1960s and about half are retiring or about to retire," he says. "The younger half is willing to adapt, but those close to retirement are not going to change their ways."