Well perhaps it is not so much a launch as a re-launch. Mid 2007 Google launched an educational program. At the time it was called ‘Google Code for Educators’. Google has now re-designed the site and re-launched as the Google Code University. The site is aimed at helping educators and students alike become more familiar with the technology behind Google and the internet in general. It is a repository of computer science educational material including tutorials, lecture slides, and videos.

The Google Code University Course Materials

Most of the course materials are Creative Commons licensed, The Google Code University encourages educators and students to reuse and build upon them. The courses are divided in to the following sections AJAX Programming, Distributed Systems, Web Security and Languages. The site covers various topics from ‘What is mySQL’ to ‘Concurrency Management’.

Many of the somewhat aloof concepts associated with key backend functionality found behind many of Googles products, are carefully explained. The sites provides code samples, Linux commands, diagrams etc to help explain these concepts.

CS Departments Search

The Google Code University provides a facility for searching teaching materials that have been published to the web by faculty from CS (Computer Science) departments around the world. You can refine your search to display just lectures, assignments or reference materials for a set of courses.

Looking back at my education in computer science, The Google Code University covers many important aspects of web development and administration that are often neglected my main stream educational institutes. All in all I think this is a fantastic offering.

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