Sonic Foundry, Inc

Sonic Foundry, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFO), the trusted global leader for video creation and management solutions, today announced Southern Cross University in Australia has expanded its Mediasite deployment campus-wide.

Through a major AV expansion project, the university added Mediasite to all classrooms across its three campuses so that every lecture could be recorded and available for students live and on-demand in their learning management system, Blackboard. The university also increased using My Mediasite Desktop Recorder for faculty and staff to create and share videos, lectures and assignments from any device and location.

Before the expansion, the university’s 4,025 Mediasite videos had garnered about 82,000 views. Now, there are 7,500 videos with 174,000 views, a 100 percent growth in a short amount of time.

“Mediasite has significantly extended our local and global reach, reduced our attrition rates and attracted and engaged more students by strengthening our distance and flexible learning offerings. Since every single lecture is provided online, students don’t need to be on campus, and the content is much more engaging than just written material,” said Tim Lane, Manager of Client Services and Security, Southern Cross University. “Engaging students is incredibly important, particularly in a very competitive tertiary sector in Australia.”

Almost half of the university’s 10,000 students study through distance education with a large percentage residing in the Asia-Pacific region. Because government funding to universities in Australia is linked to the number of students who graduate rather than enrollment figures, student attraction, engagement and retention is a major priority.

Not only has Mediasite solved that problem, but it’s also changed the way faculty teach. They’re producing videos to address a range of popular topics and are using Mediasite’s powerful analytics to keep track of student viewing habits and improve content and delivery.

“Faculty are increasingly editing lectures in Mediasite down to small five to 10 minute segments to maintain students’ attention span. Students simply love this way of teaching. There has been a dramatic increase in student viewing attention to the video lectures, and grades have increased since introducing Mediasite and My Mediasite into classrooms,” Lane said. “Before Mediasite, we didn’t have a competitive advantage. Now we do, and the world is at our fingertips.”

“For the 21st century student, online anytime instruction is a staple, not a luxury, and Mediasite lecture capture improves the learning experience,” said Gary Weis, Sonic Foundry CEO. “Southern Cross University has seen some impressive results from its lecture capture program, and we’re pleased to partner with the university as it grows its deployment to increase engagement and student achievement.”

The university won a Sonic Foundry Enterprise Video Award in April at the Mediasite User Conference, Unleash. Watch its nomination video here.

About Southern Cross University
SCU is an Australian public university with campuses on the North Coast of New South Wales, Australia and southern Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. http://scu.edu.au/