University of South Carolina

At-a-glance

• 58,906 students and 10,432 faculty and staff across the USC system
• Eight campuses statewide, from Columbia to Palmetto College
• Panopto’s enterprise video platform in place since 2021
• Improved storage efficiency and greater flexibility through consolidation of video services and licensing

For more than three decades, the University of South Carolina (USC) has adapted its approach to educational video, moving from VHS tapes and satellite broadcasts to DVDs, streaming platforms, and cloud-based services. Today, video plays an important role in teaching, learning, training, and student engagement across a university system serving nearly 60,000 students and more than 10,000 faculty and staff.

As video usage expanded across USC, the university turned to Panopto to standardize video management, delivery, and support across its eight campuses.

The challenge: Fragmented tools and distributed content

When Barry Duvall, Associate Director of Collaborative Technology, and Brett Lee, Digital Asset Manager in the Department of Academic Platforms within the Division of Information Technology, began efforts to centralize USC’s video infrastructure, content was distributed across multiple platforms and storage locations. Faculty and departments relied on a mix of services, including YouTube, Vimeo, and local storage, to share recordings and instructional materials.

The rapid growth of online and hybrid learning during the pandemic highlighted challenges associated with this decentralized environment. USC identified several priorities for a future video platform:

• Integration with Blackboard
• Support for both live and on-demand video delivery
• Department-level management of video content
• Scalability across geographically distributed campuses
• Sustainable administration by a small central support team

For Duvall, the goal came down to giving faculty their time back and giving students more flexibility in how they learn. As he put it, a faculty member wants to capture content once rather than repeat a lecture for 75 students individually or even in a classroom, so they can simply point students to a video and reserve class time for active learning.

Building a unified video environment

As USC evaluated its approach to video services, the university also reviewed a growing number of Zoom licenses that had been added during the pandemic. Consolidating on Panopto gave USC the opportunity to simplify administration and reduce duplication across the institution.

Blackboard Ultra integration

A central requirement was providing students and instructors with a consistent experience within Blackboard Ultra, which USC fully adopted in Fall 2025. Students access course materials, including recorded lectures and Zoom recordings, through Blackboard using existing university authentication. This reduces the need to navigate multiple systems and simplifies access to course content.

“The wonderful thing about Panopto is that it talks to our LMS very seamlessly. A student just logs into Blackboard and there’s the content.”
— Barry Duvall, University of South Carolina

Department-level administration

Rather than managing all video content centrally, USC established a distributed administration model. Individual schools and departments manage their own folders, content organization, and workflows while maintaining alignment with university-wide standards. This approach allows a small central team to support a large and diverse institution while giving departments the flexibility to meet their specific needs.

Examples include:

• The School of Law records lectures and manages Continuing Legal Education (CLE) content
• The College of Pharmacy supports instruction involving a large adjunct faculty population
• The College of Engineering and Computing provides recorded lectures for graduate students
• The College of Nursing uses both live and recorded video for training and certification programs
• The Professional MBA program connects students across multiple locations through synchronous and recorded instruction
• Palmetto College shares course content across smaller campuses to expand access to academic offerings

Supporting multiple learning models

USC’s history of distance education extends back decades, including partnerships with South Carolina ETV and other remote learning initiatives. While the technologies have changed, the goal of expanding access to education has remained consistent. Today, video supports a range of instructional models, including online degree programs, professional education, cohort-based learning, and multi-campus course delivery.

Brett Lee sees this as less a matter of separate delivery models than a single continuum of teaching: in his view, there is little real difference anymore between a regular class and a distance class, aside from where and when a given student happens to be watching.

Department spotlight: School of Law

The School of Law provides an example of how a department can build specialized workflows within a shared enterprise platform. The school uses video for lecture capture, content distribution, and Continuing Legal Education (CLE) programming. Faculty and staff manage both public-facing and restricted content, while supporting live and on-demand delivery for legal professionals seeking recertification.

Operational outcomes

USC’s centralized approach to video management with Panopto has produced several operational benefits:

• Reduced reliance on multiple external video platforms
• More consistent access to instructional content
• Lower administrative overhead for support staff
• Consolidation of licensing and infrastructure costs
• Broader availability of accessibility features such as automated captioning

The university also tracks educational technology adoption through HelioCampus. Usage data helps inform ongoing technology planning and investment decisions.

Looking ahead: AI, search, and assessment

USC supports several AI platforms, including Microsoft Copilot, Zoom AI, Panopto AI, and ChatGPT Enterprise, through its Garnet AI Foundry initiative. According to Lee, AI-generated summaries and search capabilities may help instructors better understand how students interact with recorded content. Faculty are also exploring video-based assignments and submissions as one way to promote authentic student engagement in an environment increasingly influenced by generative AI.

For USC, the evolution of educational video has been a long-term process shaped by changing technologies, instructional needs, and student expectations. The university’s current approach emphasizes integration, scalability, accessibility, and sustainable management across a large and distributed academic system.