Oklahoma State University yesterday launched an online video system, OStateTV, as a way to connect students, employees and alumni across multiple campuses and sites via personal computers, tablets and smartphones. The service will use a single platform based on technology from Comcast's (Nasdaq: CMCSA) independent subsidiary thePlatform and Hemisphere Interactive.
OStateTV opens with more than 30 online channels of content for topics from Arts and Humanities to Wellness Research to Sports and Leisure. Most channels "feature an elegant preview video," a news release said.
The online video service will allow the university to "showcase our great work… and to fulfill our land-grant mission of instruction, research and outreach," OSU President Burns Hargis said in the news release. "Video is a very effective way of us telling our… special story of transforming lives all over this planet. Video enables us to connect with the OSU family; whether they're students, or alumni, or donors or just friends of the university."
And thePlatform and Hemisphere Interactive enable that video.
"OSU is leveraging the same high-quality video publishing system used by many of the most prominent media and entertainment companies in the world, in order to create a compelling custom video experience for their students, alumni, and fans," said Marty Roberts, senior vice president of sales and marketing for thePlatform.
Actually, universities are leading the way when it comes to clever uses of online video, added Ken Ruck, president of Hemisphere Interactive.
"Universities are creating more valuable content across more areas of study and interest than most major media companies," Ruck said. "This partnership with Oklahoma State is creating the most powerful video distribution system for the university space."
In addition to providing information across the various media and to the various audiences, OStateTV will also be a laboratory, of sorts, for OSU's School of Media and Strategic Communications, whose students will provide content, including regular video projects for classroom work and a regular student-produced sports show.
It's part of the educational process, said Derina Holtzhausen, the school's department head, noting access to OStateTV gives students "hands-on, day-to-day experience in the latest form of video production and distribution."
For more:
- see this news release from Oklahoma State University, thePlatform and Hemisphere Interactive
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