If you want to learn about developing an iPhone application, how biophotonics tools are used in medicine or why Chicanos chose murals to transform California art, find the answers for free at UC Davis on iTunes U.

Through http://itunes.ucdavis.edu, the public can download more than 1,100 audio and video files from 155 “album” collections that include 20 UC Davis courses.

“While these offerings are not given for university credit, they provide a stimulating, self-directed education,” said Jan Conroy, UC Davis publications director.

Already, the public is viewing or listening to UC Davis files up to 80,000 times a month, he added.

Although the vast majority of UC Davis on iTunes U offerings are videos, audio files are proving to be top draws. In the past 18 months, the English course “Literature and the Environment” by Professor Timothy Morton has had more than 493,000 audio downloads from iTunes U. The “Developmental Psychology” course by Victoria Cross, a psychology lecturer, has attracted 250,000-plus audio downloads in the same time period.

UC Davis created the site through a partnership with Apple Inc., which developed the free, educationally based iTunes U service to supplement its commercial iTunes Store.

Courses recorded by UC Davis faculty members are the most popular downloads. In the past half year, six courses have been added: “Introduction to Biophotonics,” “A Sustainable Campus,” “Design as Activism,” “Graphics Architecture” and “Art History Symposium.”

Current course favorites are “Arabic Without Walls,” the iPhone application class and the “Design as Activism” from the Landscape Architecture Program.

UC Davis “NewsWatch” briefs produced by University Communications are also popular on iTunes, with thousands of downloads a month by people interested in the latest research in nutrition, medicine, veterinary medicine, ecology and physiology.

The largest album on the UC Davis site, MIND Institute Videos, contains 183 lectures by internationally renowned experts on autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, as well as conference and instruction videos.

A related research center, the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, created a new album called “Exploring the Mind,” which offers research talks by cognitive neuroscientists.

New video albums added in the past half year include two collections produced by the Art of Regional Change that feature videos created by youth, Native Americans, farmers, ranchers, community leaders and others about their lives, communities and family histories.

Other new albums include advice from the Internship and Career Center, AggieTV news, the Campus Community Book Project and the Guantanamo Testimonials Project.

The public can also get insights into current affairs from academics, politicians, journalists and other analysts thanks to the UC Davis Institute of Governmental Affairs. The institute hosts talks on topics ranging from California water politics to U.S. health reform and North Korean politics.

In addition, the School of Law records topical conferences and colloquia that deliver lively debates on international law, ethical frontiers in social media and other subjects.

The video and audio files range from 90 seconds to 90 minutes or more.

For more information about UC Davis on iTunes U, contact Susanne Rockwell at sgrockwell@ucdavis.edu.

About UC Davis

For more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 32,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $600 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. It also houses six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.