7 minute read
NJVID & VIDYO
NJVID continues to grow in terms of features and usage in 2015-16. The team worked on developing and adding innovative new features that have been applauded by the user base of faculty, students, instructional designers, and CIO’s. This year also marks a new hallmark for NJVID: The service crossed one million views in April 2016.
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The NJVID platform now features a fully redesigned, 100% HTML5 player on all new and major browsers, and with a built-in capability for flash fallback on older browsers. This update helps the membership overcome security issues caused by Flash based media players. It also added new features: Section 508 compliance and WAI-ARIA support.
NJVID today hosts more than 16,500 hours of user uploaded content that is viewed by students, faculty and staff from the convenience of their personal devices.
FlexCaptions: Higher-education institutions today have a greater need for closed-captioning that complies with ADA laws and makes content more accessible to international students. The process involves multiple pain points with institutions required to identify vendors, transfer content and add captions manually. Automated services do not provide the level of accuracy and are often cost prohibitive. NJVID addressed this vital industry need by developing a cost effective closedcaptioning integration with Cielo24, a popular service provider. Through this integration, users can seamlessly request and add captions with up to 99.99% accuracy to their uploaded NJVID content. Members can also have an approval workflow to ensure that captions are created only for required content.
Commercial video hosting update: NJVID commercial video service today hosts more than 8700 titles from over 110 media vendors. In February 2016, NJVID partnered with SWANK Motion Pictures Inc. to offer Hollywood titles from all major studios. NJVID was also able to negotiate attractive discounts for any titles that are licensed by our membership. With this capability NJVID subscribers can license and view Hollywood film classics, and access new features such as MARC records, reporting and licensing tools. 2016-17 Product Roadmap: NJVID continues to outshine its competitors in its capabilities in developing new features while delivering the same level of service and support at an unmatched price, as it has done since its inception. The ability to add quizzes within videos; screen capture and recording; Public API for third party integrations; a redesigned backend administrative interface are some of the new features being developed as a part of our roadmap for 2017.
Other noteworthy user features:
n HTML5 player now supports playback speed control and ability to Chromecast to any device n Ability for content owners to create chapter markers and publish them for everyone to see n Embeddable Playlists: Users can generate embed code for sharing a playlist on a website n Updated workflows for LMS integrations n Bulk editing of metadata and improved template functionality n Integrations with Moodlerooms n Added support for tags and keywords
Patricia Kahn, Ph.D. Assistant Vice President for Technology Systems & CIO, The College of Staten Island
The College of Staten Island (CSI) was faced with the challenge to provide a solution for the streaming and preservation of media used in academic and administration areas. Concerns for publishing video content on Blackboard as well as publicly hosted sights such as YouTube needed to be addressed. In addition, the ability to provide closed-captioning as well as applying permissions to view content by role in a secure environment was also a requirement. NJVID’s cost effective and robust solution addressed these challenges and met the needs for CSI.
NJVID is being used today by a variety of academic and administrative departments including Education, Media Culture, Psychology, Library, Public Relations, Information Technology.
NJVID’s seamless integration with Blackboard LMS makes it easier for faculty and students to upload video content without going to the NJVID portal. Users can also upload videos in a variety of areas – i.e. assignments, discussion board, content modules, etc.
A look at how CSI is using VDI and NJVID to support accessibility: CSI was faced with a challenge of providing students with disabilities access to software required for their courses. Limited resources only provided access to this software in certain labs and workstations. Students were clearly at a disadvantage. In order to address this challenge and provide for a Universal Design environment, CSI leveraged a VDI environment and provided accessibility software from the cloud. Students were now able to access software from any location on campus as well as from home. Taking this a step further, closed-captioned video tutorials were created and stored on NJVID to provide further support for these users.
Montclair State University
Montclair State University has been using NJVID services in many domains across campus. Patrick Scioscia, Instructional Designer, uses NJVID service and its features and works with instructors in making video and digital media content more inclusive of courses delivered through Canvas.
Through the years, MSU’s instructional technology team provided NJVID with valuable feedback, many of the features were developed and are in use. Patrick recently presented a poster on NJVID at the 2016 NJEDge Faculty Showcase. The poster, entitled Media Usage, Accessibility and Closed-Captioning in Today’s Course Pedagogy, highlighted the importance of accessibility and functionalities such as closed-captioning in education. NJVID has built-in features including keyboard shortcuts that give users accessibility to a media-player and screen-reader friendly website, and more. Additionally, NJVID has made closed-caption creation easier for instructors and administrators to access across the community.
NJVID’s newest subscriber, James Madison University located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, has been ranked among the most innovative schools by US News & World Report.
“James Madison University Libraries began working with NJVID in 2016 to host streaming video content. Previously the Libraries at JMU used a locally developed system intended for digital images; but, as streaming content gained momentum across campus, the need arose for a more robust system. Unlike the local system, NJVID not only consolidates individual streaming titles on a single platform, but assists us in tracking usage and license renewals and facilitates patron discoverability. NJVID staff have provided us with several web demonstrations and remain available for any questions that arise.”
Sarah Koechlin James Madison University Libraries
Vidyo conferencing solution provided by NJEDge
NJEDge, in partnership with IDSolutions and Vidyo, offers members a state-of-the-art, easyto-use, and affordable video conferencing platform for administrative and academic use. NJEDge membership receives consortium discounted pricing on the upgrades, support and conferencing hardware. The service is currently in use by more than 25 higher education institutions and K12 schools in New Jersey.
The video conferencing starter pack is available to NJEDge members who subscribe to an NJEDge circuit at no cost. The starter pack includes: n A dedicated tenant for institutional use that can be customized with institutional logo and support information n Up to 5 concurrent Vidyo lines available per member under startup pack with additional lines available for purchase; allows up to 5 concurrent calling capacity n Up to 100 installs of Vidyo Desktop client available for guest users n Up to 25 accounts available to be registered on the dedicated tenant n Access to VidyoReplay service: Record your live sessions and share them with participants for playback at a later time n Access to VidyoGateway service - Connect and control third party H.323 and SIP endpoints and cameras n Access to VidyoVoice services: This service provides local access numbers for voice-only participation from any wired, wireless, or IP telephone n Unlimited toll-free phone and email support
The Vidyo solution provides video conferencing capabilities to distant learners and allow students to benefit from the easy-to-use class resources. Members can join meetings from their computers as well as personal devices such as tablets and mobile phones from any location using the native Vidyo application allowing for meetings on the go.
Users can webcast their meetings and simultaneously record them in high definition.
NJEDge has also created a ready knowledgebase of articles related to the usage of Vidyo services.
NJEDge’s Board of Trustees meeting via Vidyo NJVID & VIDYO • 15
