Unity's service FCCN for recording, editing and publishing educational videos integrates new features in the Video Manager and Editor.
After having presented a new HTML5 editor at the end of 2020, completely abandoning Flash technology, Educast has been implementing new features in its editor throughout this year. Firstly, several improvements were made in accessibility and usability, namely through the inclusion of tooltips.
Likewise, it is now possible to include customisable descriptions (through text formatting and inclusion of hyperlinks) and ensure the enrichment of metadata thanks to the inclusion of tags. "These new functionalities bring new potentialities to the user, being possible to provide complementary information associated with each video," explains the service manager, Nelson Schäller.
Another new feature of the Educast editor is related to the possibilityof branding the videos published, since it is now possible to customise the entrance video ( pre-roll video) and the banner related to each video clip. This way, the institutions that publish videos in Educast have the possibility to customise with their brand, explains Nelson Schäller: "This is a way to give a greater prominence to the institutions that use Educast, reinforcing their institutional image in the audiovisual contents they create".
News from Educast Manager
The new features don't stop at the video editor of this service FCCN. The Educast Manager has also been improved in terms of the layout of the video clip details (image and metadata), and now it is possible to publish a video without it being removed from the manager. In addition, a new presentation has been created for the sharing video boxes and accessibility improvementshave been made to the integration of iframes on external sites.
Another of the main new features of the Educast Manager is the creation of the possibility of restricted access via password to the contents of a channel. Through this innovation, explains the Educast manager, it becomes possible to "restrict access to a group of users, via password, such as a group of students or a work group. The logic is to guarantee controlled access to the contents of a channel", reinforces Nelson Schäller.
Educast with new landing page in September
The opening of the new school year will bring with it another important milestone for Educast - the launch of a new landing page for this portal. This new page, launched during September, will facilitate the access to the videos produced by the national academic and scientific community, with the main focus on improving the search for content on the platform, namely through the tag system.
The contents will be more prominent in the new version of the landing page, reveals Nelson Schäller, adding that the new page will include "a dark mode and a more modern and bold look and feel ", being also responsive in all smartphone, tablet and desktop devices.
In 2021, Educast records about 7,580 educational videos published, with a total of 446,394 minutes produced. In comparison with 2020, there is a growth in its use, with 9 ,312 new users and 725 new channels created by them.
We recall that this service aims to provide the academic community with a platform dedicated to the production of audiovisual and multimedia content for educational and non-commercial purposes, and has been an essential tool throughout the pandemic, with the change from face-to-face classes to online.
Its central system ensures the necessary post-processing for the recordings to be available through the Internet in multiple formats: streaming, desktop and mobile, which are increasingly used by everyone in their daily lives, thus following the trends of the community.
The recorded lessons can be easily integrated into higher education institutions' e-Learning systems, portals and websites, and the videos are available via the portal for students and the general public.
To find out more about Educast visit FCCN.
