Professor creating math Youtube channel? I am wondering if anyone can offer any advice: I currently am an adjunct and teach a bunch of undergrad math classes, like Calc, ODE, etc.
What I want to do is to create a YouTube channel and show people how to do Calc, ODE, and other undergrad math topics. I want this channel to be for personal gain and not affiliated with my university. I would create the channel completely separate from my university, using a personal account only.
My question: is there anything potentially unethical about this? Can I create (public) math content on YouTube that is similar to the content that I am teaching? Any advice is helpful.
This is a great idea, and at my university people would generally be delighted if you create a public math resource of this type.
In terms of ethics, I don’t see a problem as long as you don’t start making the web materials a required source for your own students, since that would put you in a conflict of interest.
Also, if you use university-owned equipment in creating the online materials, in some cultures this could be deemed ethically problematic, so you might want to check with your department how they would feel about it, or take care to create a full separation between the time and resources you dedicate to your teaching job and the resources you use for the YouTube channel.
Other than that, as I said I think it’s an awesome initiative. Maybe the biggest concern I can think of is that if you become too successful as a famous YouTuber, people around you will get jealous. That’s not an ethical problem but maybe a practical one to think about...
Anyway, good luck with it!