Thursday, May 14, 2015

Effective June 30, 2015, the University System of Georgia (USG) will no longer offer its podcasting service. A number of instructors and units at UGA use this service for audio and video podcasts as well as course and student presentation videos.

This older service is available at http://podcasting.uga.edu.

Instructors and units with content stored on the podcasting server are advised to download podcasts before June 30. After that date, the server will be decommissioned and podcasts will not be able to be retrieved.

Instructions for downloading content from the podcasting server are available at http://ctl.uga.edu/podcast-archive.

Faculty and units interested in a replacement for the podcasting and video hosting service may use Kaltura—the new campus solution for media storage and streaming at UGA. Kaltura is a new media creation and repository tool that will be integrated with UGA’s learning management system, eLearning Commons (eLC).

Kaltura will soon be available to all colleges and units at the University, as part of a shared agreement with the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), Enterprise Information Technology Services (EITS), Terry College of Business, the College of Education, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, UGA Libraries, and the Office of Online Learning (OOL).

The CTL is currently finalizing the agreement with Kaltura and will facilitate administration and support in conjunction with EITS and the Office of Online Learning (OOL). Details and usage instructions will be posted to http://ctl.uga.edu/kaltura as soon as the service is ready to use.

Kaltura is a media tool that allows people to create, upload and publish videos, such as webcam recordings and screencasts. Kaltura allows users to include closed-captioning, which is required to meet Section 508 accessibility standards for those with disabilities. In addition, media in Kaltura can be played directly in a web browser without installing a separate plug-in.

Additional information about how to use Kaltura will be announced when it becomes available.

In the meantime, instructors and units on the existing podcasting service are encouraged to begin downloading their content before June 15. Please do not add any new content after June 15. The service will not be available after June 30.

For questions about the end of the USG Podcasting Service, please contact Robert Ethier at rethier@uga.edu. For questions about Kaltura’s use in online programs or online courses, please contact James Castle, OOL Instructional Designer, jcastle@uga.edu. For questions about Kaltura, please contact Dr. Sherry Clouser, CTL Assistant Director of Learning Technologies, sac@uga.edu.