One of the growing use cases we see at Transistor is Podcast Hosting for Universities and Colleges. Higher Education institutions are turning to podcasting to engage their students, promote their courses and attract new admissions. From recorded lectures to sharing talks with guest speakers and even teaching podcasting to students, podcasting is helping to share voices beyond the classroom.
The first step in starting a University podcast is choosing a podcast hosting platform. Transistor.fm is a professional podcast hosting and analytics platform that launched in 2018. We are trusted by Schools, Colleges and Universities around the world to host and distribute their shows. We make it easy to launch, manage and grow multiple podcasts all from one account, with no software to install or technical setup required.
How Universities Are Using Transistor.
More and more Universities are integrating podcasts into their curriculum, using them as a combined distance learning tool and a marketing strategy too.
Here are some of the ways the top Universities are using Transistor:
Sharing recorded lectures, ideal for those who can’t attend live or for revisiting topics
Talks from guest speakers, capturing popular content to use in wider University marketing
Course Overviews, great for prospective students to hear their course leaders voices
Module Summaries, which make excellent revision materials, for spaced repetition
Language Learning, to strengthen listening and comprehension skills in other languages
Promoting Academic Research, to establish authority through public thought leadership
Mandatory Training, podcasts are a great delivery method for Safeguarding, CPD and other teacher training
Building Personal Brands, allowing Professors to remain an established name in their field
Teaching Podcasting, allowing students to create their own podcast in Transistor
Podcasting features for academic organisations.
Managing podcasting within academic institutions used to be surprisingly complicated. There can often be many barriers to overcome before getting a podcast published. Even the most enthusiastic podcasting efforts can fall flat when faced with multiple rounds of budget approval, gaining buy-in from technical teams and getting publishing approval from marketing and communications teams.
With Transistor we have features to help with every stage:
Host Multiple Podcasts in One Account. Podcasting across a University can become disjointed when different departments pay for different tools. With Transistor all of our plans allow for unlimited podcasts and episodes, all within one account, for a set price. There’s no cost to start a new show and there’s no need to increase your plan to make room for additional content.
Unlimited Team Members. All of our plans allow you to invite unlimited collaborators to help publish your shows. This is perfect for Universities where different departments may create their own shows. Each podcast in Transistor can be managed by its own team. Each person has their own login that gives them access to just the shows that they manage.
Distribute Public Podcasts Easily. Reaching students and alumni where they already are is the key to having an engaged podcast audience. Transistor has made distribution easy with one-click integrations to all of the top podcast directories including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, YouTube and many more.
Create Private Podcasts. Sharing content directly with just your students is made possible with Transistor’s Private Podcast feature. Invite your students by email to give them immediate access to content that isn’t available publicly. See which content they have and have not interacted with in our Private Podcast analytics.
Detailed Analytics. We know that in Universities every purchasing decision needs to be backed up with data. When budgets are tight only the most effective marketing tools get approved. We provide a suite of detailed analytics to show you which apps your content is being listened to in, where in the world your listeners are, what devices they are using along with trends and patterns as your shows grow. Your podcast analytics data are exportable in CSV format. We also have Analytics Only team member access, if you want to give direct access to the departments that need the data.
Transcription. Making your content accessible in multiple formats increases the likelihood that students will engage with it in the best way that suits them. Our Transcription feature provides you an instant text transcript of your audio in 5 formats. Our transcription tool is an affordable optional extra, at $1 per audio hour.
Shareable Episode Previews. When content needs to be approved before publishing, having a way to easily share it as part of your workflow is key. When you create a Draft or Scheduled episode in Transistor we provide a preview link you can share with your department head to gain publishing approval.
Web Based Software. Transistor is entirely web based and is accessible in any browser. There’s nothing to download or install. No licenses or per-seat charges to keep track of. We also have many accessibility features for all learners.
Annual Billing. Transistor offers both monthly and discounted annual billing to make academic budget planning easy. There’s no contract to sign and you can cancel at any time. So if you need us for just one or two semesters or for many academic years to come, that’s fine with us.
Embedded Audio Players. Transistor makes adding your lectures to learning portals and websites easy. Each show and episode has its own embedded audio player. Just copy and paste the iframe embed code we provide to add your audio content to your pages.
Customer Support. We know that there’s a learning curve to podcasting and we’re here to help with all of the getting started questions. When your workload is already at capacity any new projects need to be carefully considered. We make sure that starting a podcast doesn’t add to that. Our Customer Support team is available on Live Chat and email, so whenever you’re working on your podcast we can help.
Academic Podcasts on Transistor
Here's just a small selection of University podcasts hosted on Transistor that include Harvard, Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge Universities and their associated academic professionals.
