Case study
How A Technical College in the Southeastern Region Streamlined Its Video Solutions With YuJa’s All-in-One Video Platform
Selection
YuJa Was Selected as the Top Choice Among RFP Competitors
A technical college with multiple campuses in the Southeastern region had been using a video platform for well over a decade. When its former vendor announced that it was discontinuing its platform, the institution set out to find a replacement that could support its current and future needs and that could help it streamline its systems with one, centrally supported and maintained solution.
Leading the evaluation and selection committee was the institution’s Director of Distance Learning, who helps evaluate vendors for online learning. During the selection process, the director said YuJa stood out among its competitors. “YuJa had all the bells and whistles, and more features than other vendors,” he said. “For me, what really stood out was the technical support and YuJa’s willingness to support students, faculty and administrators with tech support.”
“YuJa had all the bells and whistles, and more features than other vendors.”
Making the Switch
Migration Encompassed Several Elements and Was a ‘Large Process’
In addition to integrating YuJa with D2L Brightspace, the college’s learning management system, the institution had videos stored both in its previous platform and in a home-grown video server that needed to be migrated.
“We have had a media server on prem for well over a decade and the server itself was tired, old and obsolete,” the director stated. “We had been trying to migrate that media off the media server for quite some time and getting YuJa in place was definitely a big benefit to getting that offloaded off of our media server.”
The LMS was connected using an LTI integration. “It was relatively seamless,” he said about making the switch to YuJa. “We went in and created accounts for all of the instructors so when they logged on for the first time they would have an account, so there was a bit of legwork on our end, but we felt comfortable following the lead of our customer service person at YuJa.”
Use Cases
Instructors Use YuJa in a Variety of Ways
The college’s YuJa lead took charge of helping instructors get integrated with YuJa Software Capture. “It’s very vast, but a lot of the instructors – pretty amazingly and with the great assistance from the YuJa support staff – took to it pretty quickly,” he said. “Word of mouth about YuJa’s ease of use got around, and so far it has been a good experience.”
So far, lecture capture, video editing and quizzing have been the most widely used features and tools within the Video Platform. Instructors use videos in numerous ways, from show-and-tell to incorporating quizzes, to record from mobile devices, and to edit older videos to make them more current. “We’re sitting on the tip of the iceberg on ways to incorporate YuJa into courses,” The YuJa lead noted.
Recording and Editing
YuJa’s Tools Benefit Instructors and Students
As instructors become more familiar with YuJa’s tool sets, they’re expanding their uses, including with lecture capture and video editing. “Instructors are capturing their lectures at home,” the director noted. “They’re able to edit it the way they want to and then create engaging course content. The way we have YuJa embedded with D2L it’s right in front of them, so they can see we have this tool. It’s not hidden away like our told tool was.”
The YuJa lead added that for beginners especially, the video editing tools are intuitive. “We don’t get many questions,” he said.
In addition, YuJa’s media platform allows students to log in from their mobile devices from anywhere and at any time. “Before, we had some of that capacity, but I think YuJa really streamlines that for us,” the director stated. “Streamlining our video platform has been a good thing. Before, we had instructors putting videos on YouTube, some were using our in-house video server, and some were using our other vendor. YuJa has allowed us to get everything into one server and get everybody on the same page.”
“Instructors are capturing their lectures at home,” the director noted. “They’re able to edit it the way they want to and then create engaging course content. The way we have YuJa embedded with D2L it’s right in front of them, so they can see we have this tool. It’s not hidden away like our told tool was.”
Support
Support at YuJa is Second to None
The institution’s Director of Distance Learning said that when he put out the RFP for a new video platform vendor, there were a number of questions related to support, the model of training, and “YuJa was the only company we interviewed that actually would train the faculty and then would provide support for students, faculty and administrators,” he said.
From deployment to training and ongoing technical support, YuJa’s support team is unrivaled. “We’re kind of amazed,” the YuJa Lead said. “If there is a problem, it gets solved very quickly with the support staff. Even on weekends; if I get something on a late Friday, I will email support and get something back over the weekend, which is quite amazing.”
“We’re kind of amazed,” the YuJa Lead said. “If there is a problem, it gets solved very quickly with the support staff. Even on weekends; if I get something on a late Friday, I will email support and get something back over the weekend, which is quite amazing.”
Recommendation
YuJa is ‘Sturdy’ Tool With Strong Support
Because every institution has its own systems and processes, Williams said there were some changes that needed to be made at the outset to help ARU best use the Video Platform. “When you’ve got thousands of computers hooked up to something, there’s always going to be some changes. YuJa made those changes for us very quickly, and we’ve been really pleased,” Williams said.
Williams added that he would recommend YuJa to other institutions that need a strong, centralized Video Platform. “First and foremost, (YuJa team members) are really friendly and approachable. I think that’s a really important thing. We feel like we’ve got a relationship with you and it has not slacked off after we said yes,” Williams said. “You’ve done a lot of things quite quickly in terms of changing the system and making little alterations and things to fit us.”
“Long may we continue to have that positive relationship with YuJa,” he concluded.
“The organization thinks about things ahead of the curve and without putting customers in a position of raising costs. Improvements are made to make the experience better and to help us provide better content for learners.”
Highlights
College officials selected YuJa from a field of RFP competitors for its robust feature set.
02.
The college had to migrate content from its previous vendor and a home-grown video server, as well as connect YuJa with the D2L Brightspace learning management system.
03.
The institution’s tech team has been impressed not only with the Video Platform, but with YuJa’s ongoing total user support.
“When we came on board, it was a huge change for our department, but our experience has been seamless. YuJa has provided us excellent customer service, migrated videos off our server, and provided great training and support.”
The Institution’s Director of Distance Learning
