Company Partners with 10 Leading Education Institutions to Advance Video Standards and Accessibility for All Learners in Video.
Kaltura, the leading video technology platform (www.kaltura.com), whose system is deployed in hundreds of global educational institutions, announced the launch of a client advisory group to move the education industry forward with accessibility standards for video solutions in education.
The advisory board is comprised of accessibility experts from institutions including Purdue University, The University of Notre Dame, National University, the University of Illinois, The University of British Columbia, The University of Oklahoma and others.
The charter of the group is to evaluate industry best practices, guidelines, and regulations including Section 508, WCAG 2.0, WAI-ARIA, and ADA in order to work with Kaltura and partner organizations on a continuous plan for improvement and innovation in advanced accessibility and usability within Kaltura’s main solutions including the company’s premier learning management system integrations, campus/district video portal, the management console (KMC) and personal capture solution – Kaltura CaptureSpace. From there, the goal is to develop and share best practices around video accessibility within the education industry as a whole.
“Accessibility and the focus on the learner is a must for any academic institution today, not just from a legal perspective but a design and usability perspective for students with and without disabilities,” commented Adam Hagen of Purdue University, “We look forward to working with Kaltura in ensuring compatibility, ease of access and a positive learning experience for our community and beyond.”
In line with its steadfast commitment to openness and collaboration, Kaltura is launching this initiative on the heels of its other important industry initiatives such as the Open Capture Standard in conjunction with the launch of Kaltura CaptureSpace, a robust personal capture solution designed for education and the enterprise, as well as Kaltura REACH, the company’s comprehensive video discovery, search, and accessibility suite. The entire Kaltura solution set will be a part of the advisory board’s focus. Kaltura is interested in including other institutions and educational technology companies that deem accessibility a top priority as well and invites interested parties to reach out for more details. Kaltura’s goal is also to further explore how to leverage captions and metadata for optimized search and discovery of content.
“Video is quickly becoming the key engagement tool for teachers in higher education and K12,” said Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura Co-founder, Chairman and CEO, “Staying true to our core values of openness, flexibility, and collaboration, we are excited by the community effort and looking forward to the product innovation and impact it will have on users worldwide. While Kaltura has historically already taken video accessibility seriously, being one of the first players to include integrated caption support, HTML5, and Section508 compliant players, we really see the community engagement critical to taking the next step in improving the entire ecosystem of interactive video in education.”
