Educational institutions need innovative ways to enhance how students learn. Video content is proving to be more engaging and interactive than other forms of content. It also caters to a variety of different learning styles.
Educational platforms often use videos extensively in online courses. This helps them to reach diverse, global audiences and create flexible learning schedules. Adopting video as a strategic tool can change the way they teach, train, and engage. Why do educational institutions need to use video hosting?
What is video hosting and why does it matter?
A video hosting platform allows you to upload, manage, store, and share videos online. Storing them on the servers of a third-party site rather than self-hosting them has many benefits. Video files are large and can affect storage space and bandwidth if you host them on your site. It’s far better to use an embed code to add videos on an educational website. You want students to have access to high-quality videos that don’t buffer or freeze.
Many benefits come from video hosting for schools and other educational institutions on a private video hosting platform. These include more accessibility, user engagement, security, privacy, and scalability. Using video for educational purposes can save money and boost your return on investment (ROI).
Key features to look for in a video hosting platform for education
Choosing the right video hosting platform for educational video hosting is critical. Here are some key features to look for in a video hosting platform for education.
- Accessibility: Students today need access to online educational content at any time and from anywhere. Hosting online courses makes this possible. Students can watch live lectures and pre-recorded ones. Online tutorials etc. and other on-demand content in video libraries allow them to watch at their convenience and at a pace that suits them.
- Versatility: A video hosting platform should support various content types and formats. This may include lectures, demonstrations, podcasts, and animations. Various content types and formats can accommodate different learning styles and introduce more diversity into the learning experience.
- Engagement: The ability to create dynamic instead of passive content enhances engagement. Video content is more engaging than using text or images. Animated videos can help to explain complex topics in a way that’s easier to understand. This improves understanding and retention.
- Collaboration: It is essential for teachers and students to have ways to collaborate on a platform. Video conferencing tools allow teachers and students to interact in real time. Video messaging provides a quick and easy way to interact.
- Personalization: A video platform offers ways to personalize content. Access to video-on-demand (VOD) means students are able to learn at their own pace. Interactive features such as quizzes and annotations can help to personalize learning. Teachers can track student progress and provide further explanatory material to struggling students and additional resources to ones who move quickly through the material.
- Integration: Integration with leading Learning Management Programs (LMS) is important. It helps to streamline workflows. Students can easily manage and access video content in the same environment as their coursework.
- Scalability: You need to find a video hosting platform that is able to handle a large number of users simultaneously. It should be able to scale your video content to adjust to spikes in traffic and efficiently deal with an increasing number of videos.
- Student engagement analytics: Tracking student interactions, participation, and performance through engagement analytics helps with monitoring progress.
Security and privacy considerations
The leaking of internal data can cause serious reputational damage and damage trust. It can also result in a loss of intellectual property and legal repercussions. The leaking of an internal recorded meeting or video communication with investors could have serious consequences. A platform that offers strong data protection policies ensures that both proprietary educational data and the personal information of students are safe and secure.
Encryption: The platform you use should offer encryption for data in transit and at rest. AES-256 is an industry-standard encryption protocol. Regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA require data to be encrypted. Non-compliance can result in legal and regulatory penalties.
IP and geo-restrictions: These restrictions limit access to educational content to a specific IP address or the physical location of the user.
Access controls: Setting and implementing access control helps to secure content. Role-based access controls mean setting access based on roles. Granular access controls such as who can view videos and who can contribute help to prevent unauthorized access. A feature like view-bound links that expire or limited-time sharing can enforce security. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is another access-control mechanism that can add an extra layer of security. This requires additional verification beyond using a password.
Enhancing accessibility and inclusivity with video hosting
Video hosting makes virtual learning accessible to a wide range of individuals in many locations.
Providing captions or transcriptions of videos makes videos more accessible to students with hearing impairments or who have difficulty understanding the language or accent of the speaker. They also help when students want to watch a video in a noisy environment or prefer to read rather than listen.
Optimizing the technical aspects of videos such as resolution and bitrate is also important to accessibility and inclusivity. For example, students must be able to access educational videos using different devices and browsers.
Customization options with regard to colors, font sizes, etc can accommodate students with low vision, color blindness, etc.
Testing and getting feedback can help you to make your educational content work best for your intended audience. You can gain from implementing suggestions for how to improve content.
Why is Cincopa ideal for educational institutions?
Cincopa is the ideal video hosting platform for educational institutions. It is a multi-media hosting platform. You can use videos, podcasts, and images to make your online courses more engaging.
- Adaptive bitrate streaming ensures that videos are compatible with most devices which enhances video quality and reduces buffering. A content delivery network (CDN) ensures that students receive video content from a server closest to them which also ensures quality and quick delivery.
- On-video tools such as annotations, captions, CTAs, etc. encourage interactivity and help to boost engagement.
- Customizing of the HTML5 video player is possible. Adding logos, fonts, and colors to the video player and other elements like video galleries creates a consistent brand experience for students.
- On Cincopa you can make use of live streaming to stream a lecture and save it as video-on-demand (VOD). This means students who don’t watch it live can access it from the video library and watch it later.
- Integration with an LMS offers a more seamless experience for students. One of the LMS platforms Cincopa integrates with is Moodle.
- Cincopa is a secure video platform for education with state-of-the-art security features. End-to-end encryption keeps video content safe from cyber-attacks. Single-sign-on and domain lock are other security features that help to keep data safe. Watermarks on videos can help to prevent piracy.
- Access to advanced analytics enables you to make decisions driven by data insights. You can see who watches a video, from where, and on what type of device. Video heatmaps allow you to observe student behavior while watching videos. See when they rewatch, skip, or drop off a video. You can use this type of information to improve video content.
Conclusion
A video hosting platform helps you to host, store, organize, and distribute educational video content. This is essential for many reasons such as protecting the content and offering access to in-depth analytics. Cincopa is strong on security and analytics. It also offers customization, interactive features, integration with third-party systems, and scalable storage. Visit the home page and you can sign up for a free trial.
