NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - July 7, 2010) - Kaltura, Inc. (http://www.kaltura.com), developer of the first open source online video platform, announced today that it has joined the Blackboard Alliance Program™ (http://blackboard.com/Communities/Partners/Bb-Alliance-Program.aspx) as a Blackboard Signature Partner™, and released a new video-management Blackboard Building Block™ for the Blackboard Learn™ platform. Designed in partnership with leading educational institutions, Kaltura's video Blackboard Building Block enables seamless use of rich-media within the Blackboard Learn platform. Learn more and try out the Blackboard Building Block at: http://site.kaltura.com/Blackboard.html.
"There is a surge in demand for online video tools and services amongst higher education institutions. Kaltura's open source platform is ideally suited for this market's needs since it provides the necessary openness, flexibility, freedom, control and affordable price points that ensure a high return on investment," said Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura Chairman & CEO. "With the release of our Blackboard Building Block, we can seamlessly provide all of our functionalities to the great many Blackboard users without requiring any integration effort. This is tremendously valuable and highly disruptive. It not only provides institutions with new rich-media capabilities, but also caters directly to today's YouTube generation of students, allowing them to fully contribute and interact with rich-media from within the Blackboard environment."
Kaltura's video Blackboard Building Block adds a full layer of rich-media functionality that works in multiple points across the Blackboard Learn platform. It includes the full capabilities of the Kaltura Open Source Online Video Platform, allowing students and faculty to upload, edit, record from webcam, manage, view and interact with rich-media from within the Blackboard® environment. Students and faculty can now use images, videos, PowerPoint presentations and audio as easily and intuitively as they would documents and other content objects within the Blackboard Learn platform. Each student and professor now has their own media library in the Blackboard Learn platform. Users can add video to a course, submit a video assignment, view lecture videos, see a playlist of campus events, or access video from the library. With Kaltura, the Learning Management System once again becomes the key point of access for cross-campus media content.
"Rich-media is being incorporated into every aspect of learning and teaching, so it is a pleasure to see advanced video solutions being developed and integrated as a Building Block into the Blackboard Learn platform to provide not only administrators, but also professors and students, with full interactive capabilities to publish and manage rich-media within their curricular activities and beyond," said Amy Senew, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Blackboard.
Key Benefits of the Kaltura Blackboard Building Block:
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Includes Kaltura's full rich-media functionality -- content uploader, management console, video-PowerPoint widget, online video editor, and much more.
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User engagement is enhanced by making it easy for students to interact with each other and with the faculty using rich-media.
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Videos from lecture capture systems, libraries, and live events can easily be added to your Blackboard course or system through the Kaltura Blackboard Building Block.
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Files of any type can be transcoded for regular or High Definition delivery on the Web or mobile devices, including the iPhone® and iPad™.
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Rich-media content is organized, secured, and accessed according to the roles and permissions that are defined within the Blackboard system.
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All videos can be hosted and monitored by Kaltura in fully redundant and replicated data centers, preventing the Learning Management System from stalling under the weight of large video files. For institutions that need to host video locally, Kaltura also offers a fully Self-Hosted version of the Platform.
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High quality video streaming can be provided through Kaltura's tier 1 global CDN partners, ensuring top quality video delivery worldwide.
Learn more about Kaltura's Education Solutions at: http://corp.kaltura.com/solutions/education_video
About Kaltura
Kaltura provides the world's first Open Source Online Video Platform. Over 60,000 web publishers, service providers, developers, and educational institutions use Kaltura's flexible platform to enhance their websites, web-services, and web-platforms with advanced customized video, photo and audio functionalities, including publishing, management, syndication, monetization and analysis, as well as content uploading and remixing. The free community-supported self-hosted software and source-code is available for download at www.kaltura.org. A commercial version of the software can be obtained at www.kaltura.com along with Kaltura services such as streaming, hosting, transcoding, analytics, ad serving, support and maintenance packages, and professional development. Founded in 2006, New York-based Kaltura is also a founding member of the 'Open Video Alliance' (www.openvideoalliance.org), a coalition of organizations dedicated to fostering open standards for online video. For more information: www.kaltura.com and www.kaltura.org.
Blackboard, the Blackboard Alliance Program, the Blackboard Developers Network, and Blackboard Building Blocks are the trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackboard Inc. All rights reserved.
Contact Information:
Erin Freeley
ProwessPR for Kaltura
(646) 246-1962
erin@prowesspr.com