Instructional Chunking With YuJa’s Video Platform

Instructional Chunking at a Glance 

Chunking in higher education is also commonly referred to as micro-lessons. When put into practice, the material is broken down into modules and then broken down once more into lessons, which are typically 5 to 10 minutes in length. These compact lessons are used as a strategy to break down complex information into more digestible tidbits, making it easier to learn and allowing the brain to process and retain the new information. 

Because research has shown that students better learn and retain information that has been broken down through chunking, instructors have embraced the method in their course design. Given the rise of online learning, chunking is especially important, as content has to be presented both logically and progressively for students to excel. 

Chunking With YuJa’s Enterprise Video Platform

Chunking can be used to benefit students at all levels of education. Research by experts at Nielsen Norman Group showed that people prefer content that is logically divided or chunked because the information appears less difficult and easier to understand. 

YuJa’s Video Platform lends itself to many capabilities, but it’s designed to help make learning and instructing easier, including through chunking instructional material. One way to facilitate chunking is through a flipped classroom, which is a blended form of learning where instruction is done at home through video, and during scheduled class time teachers focus on allowing students to gain a deeper understanding of concepts through discussion, group activities and more detailed instruction. Flipped classrooms naturally lend themselves to take the form of chunking, because lessons are typically taught within a shorter time frame than what is seen in a traditional classroom setting. 

Instructors can take the concept of chunking a step further in a flipped classroom by turning what normally would be a passive learning experience into an active or interactive one. Through YuJa’s Video Capture Instructors can:

• Create a video quiz with existing video content;
• Turn their media player into a collaboration space with time-linked, in-video commenting tools;
• Allow students to review, search and annotate video content.

Using Analytics to Inform Instructional Design

YuJa also allows its users the ability to see how effective videos are through the Video Analytics Suite, which provides instructors and course designers a deeper understanding of how their lessons are making an impact on students.

This additional access helps pinpoint areas of concern, and track participation and user adoption using near real-time reporting tools. Data can be filtered based on specific courses, video and users. Additionally, “hotspots,” or areas of confusion are highlighted, along with drop-off points, popular content and more. Administrators, teachers and faculty also can quickly perform data exports, including setting up automated report generation and publishing. 

No matter your educational institution, YuJa’s products aim to simplify the workflow and make it easy for teachers to provide the best learning experience for students.

Expanding Video in Blended Learning Environments

Many instructors who have taught blended courses are quite familiar with basic lecture capture, but may not have fully explored the options available through video today.

The Benefits of Video

Video offers several distinct advantages as a learning medium, whether it’s being used in the context of a flipped classroom or to provide supplemental learning materials.

• Since video combines visual, text, and auditory elements, it effectively reaches individuals with different learning styles.
• Video relies on and makes use of both the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
• Images, including moving images in the video, are more likely to be remembered than text.
• The brain can process images more quickly and efficiently than text.
• Video is ideal for shorter attention spans, common in students raised in today’s digital age.

Expand Video Learning

Video learning doesn’t have to be limited to a traditional recording of a course lecture, with an instructor at the podium and a digital presentation. Consider integrating some of these suggestions into your blended learning or distance learning courses to keep students engaged and active.

Keep It Short

Breaking videos down into shorter, more digestible pieces is known as chunking or micro-lessons.

Because research has shown that students better learn and retain information that has been broken down through chunking, instructors have embraced the method in their course design.

Learners report that videos from six minutes to 15 minutes in length are preferred to traditional, full-length lecture videos. You can still cover the content, but break it up into shorter sections or elements to keep students focused on learning.

Personalize or Brand your Content

Consider using the same introduction for all of your video content, or integrating some of the same structures throughout. If you think about the videos your students watch on their own time, there is often a clear introductory sequence that identifies the video maker and topic.  This is an ideal time to provide your students with the information they need about the video content or other course activities.

YuJa also offers a custom-branded EnterpriseTube to provide a public face for your organization. Accessible without logging in, this is a great way to showcase public events, share information, and show what your institution has to offer while keeping everything aligned to your brand.

Provide Feedback

While many videos are used by all students, recording tools also enable you to provide video feedback to a single student or a small group of students. Skip the red pen and provide detailed feedback on a rough draft, project, or another assignment.

Teach Hands-on Skills

In many fields, students do not only need to know the information but also need to be able to perform set skills. Video recording can allow you to show those skills to students who might not have been able to attend, or who need to review a demonstration. With access to a demonstration video, students can more easily master these skills, whether you’re working with a piece of software or performing a medical procedure.

How Single Sign-On Streamlines Access in Higher Education

What is SSO?

Single Sign-On (SSO) is an authentication process that allows a user to access multiple applications or systems with a single set of login credentials, such as their username and password. Instead of requiring users to remember and enter different usernames and passwords for each application, SSO enables them to log in once and gain access to all authorized systems without the need to re-enter their information. In higher education, SSO simplifies access to an institution’s learning management system (LMS) and other applications.

Enhancing the Higher-Ed User Experience 

In higher education, students, faculty, and staff interact with many digital platforms, from learning management systems to email, library resources, and more. SSO simplifies this experience, reducing the frustration of managing multiple login credentials and saving time for more meaningful academic and administrative tasks. Institutions can foster a more collaborative and streamlined learning and administrative environment by unifying access to all platforms under a single authentication umbrella. 

“Institutions can foster a more collaborative and streamlined learning and administrative environment by unifying access to all platforms under a single authentication umbrella.“

Key Components of Single Sign-On

With  SSO integration, institutions can provide seamless access to websites and applications regardless of a student’s physical location or device. Key components of SSO include:

Authentication Mechanisms: SSO systems use robust authentication mechanisms to verify the identity of users. This can include traditional username and password combinations, biometric authentication, or multi-factor authentication (MFA) for an added layer of security.

Identity Provider (IdP): The IdP is a crucial element in the SSO infrastructure. It is responsible for authenticating users and providing tokens or assertions that can be used to access other services within the SSO ecosystem.

Service Providers (SP): Service providers are the applications or platforms that users want to access. These services rely on the authentication the IdP provides, allowing users to move between them without needing additional logins.

Advantages of SSO in Higher Education

The benefits of SSO in higher education are numerous:

Simplified user account management –  From an administrative perspective, SSO simplifies user account management. When a user’s credentials change, such as when they update their password, the changes are reflected across all connected services, reducing the workload for IT teams. 

Robust security measures – SSO systems often incorporate robust security measures, such as multi factor authentication, ensuring user accounts remain secure. Institutions can better monitor and control access to sensitive data by centralizing authentication processes. 

Ability to quickly scale and integrate new applications – As new applications are adopted, integrating them into the SSO system is more straightforward, which promotes scalability and adaptability.

Embracing Single Sign-On is not just a technological choice; it’s a strategic move toward a more agile, secure, and user-friendly educational ecosystem.

The Value of a Cloud-Hosted Video Platform

Cloud Hosting vs On-Prem Hosting

Cloud hosting involves using a network of connected remote and/or virtual devices, which makes the technology scalable, reliable and on-demand. Because information is spread across data centers, if a hosting site goes offline, others compensate to keep your system up and running smoothly. No two organizations’ needs are the same and cloud hosted services can be tailored in an unlimited way, with flexibility in areas like architecture, space and security.  The servers are owned and managed by a vendor.

The alternative to cloud hosting is on-premise, or “self-hosted” solutions. This option uses local resources to run software on computers physically located on-premise of the organization. The organization must have a space for the servers, known as a data center, or use a virtual private server or virtual dedicated service to locate on premise software, but hosting is still provided by the organization’s own hardware.  

Cloud Hosting is a Value Driven Solution 

Cloud hosting has become increasingly popular for a number of reasons, including speed of innovation, operating cost and security. 

“Cloud hosting removes barriers to entry for businesses and organizations, which no longer have to find and train their own team to support their infrastructure,” said Nathan Arora, Chief Business Officer at YuJa, Inc. “It’s a smart, cost-effective solution for businesses of all sizes.”

Speed of innovation: Cloud solutions allow for rapid innovation with fewer risks of disruption. Members of your organization can focus on innovating rather than reacting to daily minutia of technical issues that arise when self-hosting. You can scale up or down on demand, test ideas quickly and keep moving toward your organization’s next great idea. 

Internal operating cost: Using the cloud shifts what is normally a capital expenditure to an operating expenditure, lowering the initial costs, as well as ongoing IT management and support costs. On-prem hosting requires a trained team, whereas with cloud solutions, everything is handled through the vendor.

Level of data security and privacy: Cloud platform solutions like the YuJa Cloud ensure data security and privacy, which includes having third-party audits to ensure the highest level of security.

The YuJa Video Cloud

Designed by engineers, scientists and PhDs with a track-record of deploying large-scale distributed systems, each tool within our Enterprise Video Platform leverages the YuJa Cloud to deliver a high-impact user experience. The YuJa Cloud is the backbone of our entire video-powered platform, including lecture capture, media management, live streaming, video conferencing, social learning and mobile video tools.

How Higher Education Can Leverage Data Lakes to Manage the Onslaught of Video and Digital Media Content

The good news for administrators is that data is and can stay a college or university’s friend, helping record and distribute lectures, capture information, streamline processes and create more efficient systems for managing information. The key, of course, is ensuring your organization has proper storage, management and security/compliance protocols. 

Here are some top tips to working with large amounts of data, particularly video data:

Ensure Your Platforms Are Scalable

Ensuring your platforms are scalable and that your organization is using the right platform for each data type is important. Basic file management systems, like Learning Management Software (LMS) platforms, are inadequate for storing video content. That’s because video files are large, which means not only do they take up a lot of space on your device, they also require a lot of bandwidth to send, download or stream. To handle video content, make sure you have a system designed for video content management. 

Make Sure You’re Using the Right Platform for Each Data Type

Similarly, Zoom isn’t an ideal storage space for video data. The YuJa Video Content Management System (Video CMS) enables organizations to store, manage, and stream media content both inside-and-outside their enterprise with a scalable platform designed for your organization.

If your organization is saving files strictly for compliance reasons, it’s best to turn to an e-discovery and storage compliance solution like YuJa Himalayas, where institutions can store data lakes in a searchable, compliant and cost-effective manner.  

What Are Data Lakes and How to Manage Them

Data lakes are central repositories for internal, external, structured and unstructured data accumulated from a variety of sources. Organizations can store data in its original form, thereby allowing the flexibility to analyze and build optimized data architectures. This makes it not only possible, but simple for IT professionals, administrators and others to efficiently and quickly extract insights from enterprise data.

 

According to recent Aberdeen research study, the average company is seeing the volume of their data grow at a rate that exceeds 50% per year. The same study noted that organizations who implemented a Data Lake outperforming similar companies by 9% in organic revenue growth.

 

Tools that help organizations identify regulatory and corporate compliance risks in video, audio, and documents are optimal for managing large volumes of data. These tools can provide searchable transcriptions of spoken words, and optical character recognition (OCR) of screen content.

How a Security and Compliance Solution Can Help

As organizations scale video and audio collaboration, the challenge of compliance makes it difficult to increase usage within regulated sectors. YuJa Himalayas provide a unified Platform to review and search video conference recordings, analyze and search visual content, and provide compliant archiving of video content. 

Your institution’s video can be integrated into existing compliance programs, whether it’s data archiving, storage tiering, visual search, policy management or automated ingestion. Himalayas automatically provides tools to identify regulatory and corporate compliance risks in video, audio, and documents by providing the searchable transcriptions of spoken words and optical character recognition (OCR) of screen content. Additionally, YuJa Inc. is a SOC 2-compliant firm achieving the highest standard for corporate and information technology (IT) governance.

Employees Prefer Video Learning to More Traditional Training Methods

Video brings a host of advantages to your organization as it supports corporate learning: 

Video Makes Training More Effective: Video helps create a more engaging and realistic experience for learners, which leads to higher retention both short- and long-term. Research by SAVO Group (now part of Seismic) shows that the average employee will have forgotten 65% of presentation material covered after just one week. After six months, that number jumps to 90%. By injecting emotion and body language into videos, viewers will remain more engaged and overall effectiveness of the training will be increased. 

Video Can Save in Training Costs: Limited or no travel expenses combined with the reusable nature of video make it an ideal cost-saving training measure for organizations of all sizes. Microsoft reported that when it used video instead of classroom training, the company saw a cost reduction of nearly 95%, with a total savings of $13.9 million per year. 

Video Allows On-Demand, Consistent Training: When videos are stored in a central repository, employees can view and access any time and from any location or device. And because everyone is watching the exact same video, there’s less risk of miscommunication or inconsistencies in each employee’s training experience.

If your company hasn’t implemented a video training solution, there’s no better time to explore what it could do for you.

How to Facilitate Cross-Departmental Relationships With Video

The Benefits of Cross-Departmental Interaction

Cross-departmental interaction benefits students, staff and faculty.

Students: Cross-departmental interaction facilitates team-building, which has been shown to improve student performance, increase involvement and participation, increase critical thinking skills, and ready them to be part of an effective, multi-disciplinary workforce.

Staff: Cross-departmental engagement turns individual departments into a team that is able to work together on individual projects and overall goals. In addition, when different departments are connected and engaged with one another, they better understand the skills, tools and abilities available across the campus.

Instructors: Cross-departmental connections facilitate interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research and innovation. When instructors know what others are doing, they can offer input, access new resources, and have the ability to create collaborations for publication, research projects and funding efforts.

How to Use Video to Encourage Interaction

There are many different ways video facilitates connections and cross-departmental interactions on campus, whether it’s in individual offices and departments or across departments and different fields of study.

1. SHARE LECTURE CAPTURES
   

   Sharing lecture captures created for classes can help introduce students and instructors to different departments. This can provide more information about various fields and specialties, as well as spark new interests or collaborations.

2. CREATE INTRODUCTORY VIDEOS
   

   Creating introductory videos for different campus offices helps others know who does what on campus. This is especially helpful for new students and instructors to reduce confusion and support efficient onboarding.

3. INTRODUCE OTHERS TO RESEARCH
   

   Ask instructors to create short videos about their research or publications, which allows instructors or graduate students to practice presentations and can provide an in-depth look at what’s being explored and studied on campus.

4. INCLUDE CONTACT INFORMATION
   

   Encourage instructors, students and staff to include contact information in their video content to support interaction and collaboration.

5. SHARE EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES
   

   Capture and share campus events, from student activities to academic conferences. This can help remote instructors and students stay informed and engaged.

6. CONNECT COLLEAGUES
   

   Use video conferencing or chat technology to connect instructors on campus with colleagues on sabbatical or working on research off campus. This facilitates real-time interactions, even when everyone can’t be present.

7. MANAGE INTERDISCIPLINARY TEAMS
   

   Interact with interdisciplinary teams using flexible scheduling with video tools. Teams can meet using online tools for increased interaction.

8. PROMOTE PROJECTS AND INITIATIVES
   

   Promote multidisciplinary initiatives by sharing positive results and project outcomes with campus and community leaders. This can provide an ideal way to support community relationships and open up new opportunities for students and institutions.