UNINETT connects all Norwegian schools, research institutions, adds Mediasite webcast technology to its national IT infrastructure
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands (ISE booth #2C75) — January 30, 2013 — The use of academic video is rapidly increasing across Norway due to a partnership between Sonic Foundry, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFO), the trusted market leader for video management and academic, enterprise and event webcasting, and UNINETT, the network and internet services provider for Norwegian colleges, universities and research institutions.
“There is absolutely a demand for lecture capture in Norway. You can ask any student, and he or she would say ‘I want lecture capture,’ ” said Thorleif Hallen, senior adviser at UNINETT in Trondheim, Norway. “The uptick of academic video in Norway is enormous now that schools have access to Mediasite content right at their fingertips.”
UNINETT is owned by the Ministry of Education and Research and is responsible for the country’s National Research and Education Network (NREN), connecting more than 200 Norwegian educational and research institutions and more than 300,000 students and teachers to top educational technologies. UNINETT aims to remove barriers to technology use within these institutions and empower them to incorporate educational technologies in classrooms.
UNINETT increased its offerings to the educational community by adding Mediasite to the list of cost-effective services available. Introducing the powerful Mediasite EX video management platform into the existing family of NREN-supported network applications allows participating institutions to connect any number of their Mediasite Recorders to UNINETT’s centrally managed Mediasite webcasting and management platform. This provides schools and researchers an economical, yet scalable infrastructure to record, deliver and manage rich video content. Recently UNINETT began offering these services to Swedish universities, as well.
“Everything I’ve been looking for in webcasting tools the last few years is in Mediasite,” Hallen said. “Our members want a technology that allows them to share lectures, support mobile devices and allows for videoconferencing, so selecting Mediasite as a service offering was a natural fit. Mediasite checks off every box and is the best lecture capture system there is. It increases the quality of teaching and communicating. Students get to learn in a more personalized way, and they really appreciate that lecture recordings are available for review on-demand.”
“We applaud UNINETT for working to accomplish a mission that matches our own vision for Mediasite – making educational technology available in every classroom,” said Rob Lipps, executive vice president of Sonic Foundry. “With Mediasite, teachers are able to create, manage and distribute video-based instruction in a secure environment. Plus, students can review it whenever and wherever there is an internet connection.”
Trusted by more than 1,100 colleges and universities, the patented Mediasite webcasting and video content management system quickly and cost-effectively automates the capture, management, delivery and search of live and on-demand streaming videos and rich media.
About Sonic Foundry®, Inc.
Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ: SOFO) is the trusted market leader for enterprise webcasting solutions, providing video content management and distribution.
