Today's young adults consume more video than any other age group - watching an average of 398 online videos per month. For this reason institutions of all sizes are working to develop scalable video strategies that meet the demands of students and faculty. It's important for those setting an institutions video agenda to fully understand the key technological components vital to any successful university strategy. Find out what these 5 key components are!

1. The 5 keys to a successful University Video Strategy

2. • Today’s students are the biggest consumers of
online video content. They’ve grown up in a world
where video is available instantly, on-demand,
and on any device.
• Video is eating the internet! Video now accounts
for 43% of all online traffic — and Cisco predicts
that by 2016, this number will rise over 86%. Every
day, 82 million Americans watch 1.2 billion video
online, and growth has shown no signs of slowing.
Why is a video strategy important?
2013 2016
Video
Everything else

3. • Today’s young adults consume more video
than any other age group — each watching
an average of 398 online videos/month.
• Over the past six years there’s been an
800% increase in video consumption, and
it’s expected that by 2015, 90% of online
video consumption will come from the
student (18 - 34) demographic.
• For today’s students, online video is as
much a part of daily life as socialising or
listening to music.

4. Institutions are working to develop
scalable video strategies that meet
the demands of students and faculty.
It’s important for those setting an
institution’s video agenda to fully
understand the key technological
components vital to any successful
university video strategy:
The 5 keys to a successful University video strategy
A robust, cloud infrastructure
Smart video playback
Cloud video encoding
Content delivery networks
Security and authentication

5. A cloud–based infrastructure forms the backbone of any modern online video solution
by providing the framework behind a cost–effective, scalable and secure way to deliver
video to any device, anywhere in the world.
Unlike traditional managed and on–site solutions, modern cloud–based infrastructures
are cost effective and environmentally friendly (cloud computing results in an average
of 30% less energy consumption than on-site servers).
Plus, they offer disaster recovery, decreasing the importance of local backup solutions.
A robust cloud infrastructure

6. Reliable playback on all browsers and devices is
a vital component of any cloud video solution.
Modern smart video players offer fast, reliable
and high-quality playback on all browsers &
devices.
They achieve this by detecting which browser or
mobile device a viewer is using and delivering
the appropriate (HTML5 or Flash) player.
Smart video playback

7. Cloud video encoding
Encoding is the process of converting a video or file from its original format into a
format that’s suitable for online delivery on any computer or mobile device.
It’s a tricky business, with thousands of variables, and requires lots of processing
horsepower — and in the past it’s been one of the major barriers to universities sharing
video online.
Modern cloud encoding handles this step automatically, behind the scenes — allowing
academics to upload video in any format, safe in the knowledge that it will be
converted to “just work” for students, on any device.

8. Content delivery networks
An online/distance learning student may be anywhere in the world – and it’s important
that they get a great streaming experience whichever country they’re in.Content
Delivery Networks work by mirroring video content on thousands of servers across the
world.
When the student hits ‘play’, their video is delivered from a server that’s geographically
close to their location, ensuring a great playback experience. The Akamai CDN, (the
same network that Facebook uses) is widely considered to be the best-of-breed CDN.
At MediaCore we have a special relationship with Akamai so we can provide their CDN
to all of our customers.

9. Security and authentication
Security and privacy are essential when developing a university video strategy — robust
authentication, appropriate encryption and physical security measures need to be in
place to guard against unauthorized access to videos and personal data.
Public sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo lack the security and authentication
features that are mission–critical for a university.
This is why many educational institutions are choosing to adopt enterprise-grade,
private video platforms — such as MediaCore — that integrate directly with their existing
authentication methods (e.g. Shibboleth, AD and LTI) and provide custom plugins
allowing video content to be seamlessly incorporated into a LMS.

10. If you’d like more advice on strategies for engaging the
Netflix generation, or you’re in the process of developing a
video strategy at your institution you may enjoy our free
eBook, which covers:
• The trends driving the rapid growth of online video.
• 5 strategies to engage college-aged students with video.
• The technology needed to do this.
Want to learn more?
Download the eBook