Faculty, Student Use of Video Soars at Florida International University After Selecting Mediasite

MADISON, Wis. — December 06, 2017 — Sonic Foundry, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFO), the trusted global leader for video creation and management solutions, today announces a long-time customer, Florida International University, has completed a major expansion of Mediasite in the colleges of Business, Law, Engineering and Computing and FIU Online.

The university has used Mediasite for video management since 2011. With the expansion, completed in June, the university has standardized on Mediasite for video capture, video management and flipped and distance learning. More than 33 classrooms across the south Florida university are equipped with Mediasite to record lectures for students. Instructors can either schedule recordings for automated lecture capture or walk into a classroom and start recording with the simple push of a button.
Video use among faculty and students has soared since the expansion. Faculty have already created nearly 1,900 videos that have been viewed more than 40,800 times to date in its learning management system.

“Mediasite allows students to focus more in class. They don’t need to worry about taking copious notes. They’re coming to the lecture halls, and online students are watching lectures in real-time. They can focus on the lecture and look back at the recording at home to make sure they didn’t miss anything. Mediasite supplements what happens during class,” said Stephen Bromfield, Assistant Director of Media Systems, Media Technology Services at FIU.

Driving flipped learning with personal capture
In addition, all faculty and students have access to My Mediasite, personal capture software that is driving the use of flipped instruction. My Mediasite allows them to create, edit and share videos, screencasts and slideshows from any computer or smartphone. Faculty are recording short video lectures that students watch prior to class, making room for more interactions and discussions during class time. Students are recording video assignments and presentations.

Showcasing all campus videos
FIU uses Mediasite Showcase to create its own YouTube-esque environment called The Playlist where it can share certain videos from campus events with the public. Completely customized to fit with FIU’s brand and website, playlist.fiu.edu houses videos from faculty and students that have either been captured with Mediasite or imported in from other devices.

“Mediasite is a very feature-rich technology,” said Matt Hagood, Director of Media Technology Services at FIU. “We love that Mediasite can capture dual video, and its customizable viewing experience allows viewers to rearrange the player, make videos larger or smaller and even speed them up or slow them down. Mediasite’s integration with learning management systems was essential, and the fact that we can actually get interaction with the students from Mediasite through chat, polling and quizzing features was a big selling point.”

“Florida International University has already created an impressive amount of video in the first few months after its major Mediasite expansion, and it is exciting to see faculty and students embrace video in the classroom to supplement their teaching and learning. Sonic Foundry is proud to be FIU’s trusted video partner,” said Gary Weis, Sonic Foundry CEO.
Trusted by more than 1,500 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 videos for campus events, lecture capture and flipped learning.

About Florida International University
Florida International University is classified by Carnegie as a “R1: Doctoral Universities – Highest Research Activity” and recognized as a Carnegie Community Engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offer bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs in fields such as business, engineering, computer science, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida’s anchor institutions, FIU contributes almost $9 billion each year to the local economy. The university received honors in all categories of The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “2017 Great Colleges to work for.” FIU graduates are consistently among the highest paid college graduates in Florida and are among the leaders of public and private organizations throughout South Florida. FIU is Worlds Ahead in finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission with multiple state-of-the-art research facilities including the Wall of Wind Research and Testing Facility, FIU’s Medina Aquarius Program and the Advanced Materials Engineering Research Institute. FIU has awarded more than 220,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, the Miami Beach Urban Studios, and Tianjin, China. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA and more than 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.