Case Hogeschool Utrecht

A school career full of documents

As soon as a student enrols in a college or university, all files are stored or archived during his/her entire learning career. Some of these files also need to be kept for a longer period of time after the student's career. Of course, this was already the case for Utrecht University, but because this involves a large amount of files, the university decided to put out a tender. Zeticon and its platform MediaHaven were chosen as partners and solutions. The focus was on how MediaHaven could serve as a central archiving platform and on the openness of the platform, so that seamless links to the HU's other applications could be implemented.

Increasing importance of video through blended learning

In addition to the ever-growing volume of documents per student, Utrecht University of Applied Sciences also realised that the use of video would only increase in the coming years. One of the reasons for this development is the further expansion of the 'blended learning' concept. Blended learning means that the student can combine campus education and e-learning. This makes the importance of a central system for storage, archiving, metadata, access management, and workflow automation of learning materials increasingly important. An additional requirement is of course that the manageability and security of the media must be guaranteed.

E-depot as a reference for exams and evaluations

For an exam such as Sign Language or other evaluations of actions within a particular course such as Nursing, it is important to assess each action as thoroughly as possible. When the required actions can be captured on video, this provides added value for a more thorough evaluation or re-evaluation. To achieve this, students need to be able to upload their examination material easily. On the MediaHaven platform, this is done through the user-friendly import module. The Mediahaven solution ensures this material is safely stored and archived, after which the teacher can evaluate and comment on the video by creating fragments in the video player. After the evaluation, the videos can be stored in the e-depot section of Mediahaven, so that they can still be retrieved and viewed later if there are doubts about the student's results.

More info about the import module

Implementation with Canvas

Zeticon also implemented a link between MediaHaven and Canvas. Canvas is one of the most important platforms for students and staff within the HU. It is a learning management system (LMS), on which knowledge clips with course information are stored. Zeticon created a plug-in to save and retrieve videos from Canvas, so students can consult all the visual material and accompanying explanations provided by a teacher. Teachers can also use the link to Mediahaven from the platform to upload videos and other visual material or retrieve it from other colleagues.

Zeticon as an ideal partner with its own product and platform

The HU was therefore looking for a way to expand their vision for a sustainable archiving platform, and went in search of the ideal partner. From the range of solutions, Zeticon emerged for its value for money and architectural vision; Zeticon's cost-effective, scalable, high-performance and flexible solution was a perfect fit for HU's needs. The open API also allowed HU to build on top of Zeticon, either with open source or commercial software components.

Results and future perspectives

Currently, Zeticon looks back on a pleasant cooperation with HU, which has allowed them to archive the material in a user-friendly way. In the spirit of continuous improvement, Zeticon and HU hold regular follow-up meetings to discuss future planning and the roadmap.

Watch the reaction of Hogeschool Utrecht about the use of our solution in this video!

Naar de website van Hogeschool Utrecht