As schools continue to ride the waves of pandemic surges, they face ongoing decisions—and opportunities to evolve. When and how to transition to virtual learning is one of those decision points. It’s crucial that the technology a school uses for virtual learning does not make that transition harder.

Are you working with a vendor who can immediately scale up remote learning and help you respond to rapid changes? If you need to assess your current video platform or a potential technology partner, here are five important areas to consider when evaluating an educational video vendor.

Cloud-based technology

In today’s world, schools have to pivot quickly, whether it’s to shift classes to remote learning or scale and grow their learning model to provide greater access to students and enrich their experience. Cloud-based solutions allow schools to be agile, avoiding the need for extensive hardware, implementation headaches, and maintenance services.

Panopto’s cloud-based technology has reliability and scalability built into its infrastructure. From day one, Panopto has been in the cloud, keeping our focus on mission-critical work, and we created this flexible, scalable solution with the purpose of facilitating higher education. Our global infrastructure operates at an extraordinary scale, while also providing secure access, always-on uptime, and auto-recovery for recordings in the event of a lost network connection, hardware failure, or power outage.

Thousands of colleges and universities around the world use Panopto, including 70% of the top 50 US schools on the Wall Street Journal list.  Faculty, students, and administrators know they can rely on our platform to deliver a quality educational experience. As the pandemic hit, we were ready with a scalable infrastructure and the mission to help people share knowledge with video. That commitment continues as schools look to expand their video usage.

Ease of use

Especially when a school’s staff and students embody a wide range of technology skill levels, it’s important to use a video solution that is intuitive and easy-to-use. When schools are working to stay ahead of the game and truly excel in virtual learning, they can’t work with cumbersome, confusing technology that slows down the time it takes to get up and running.

Designed for the needs of higher education, Panopto has always been customer-focused. Our teams work directly with our customers to understand what’s most important, respond to user input, and create solutions to address unique challenges. We listen to our customers and continually work to make our platform better. Here’s what two recent customers said.

Seamless integration

Virtual learning requires more than a stand-alone video management system. Schools need a platform that will integrate with their learning management system (LMS) and video conferencing solution. This level of integration simplifies and automates video creation, sharing, and management.

Panopto integrates with all the essential LMS, content management systems, and video conferencing solutions, including Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Simply put, we integrate with your existing technology—the systems your faculty and students are already familiar with. Schools don’t need to wade through custom setups and complex implementation processes. Panopto provides a turnkey solution that’s easy to get up and running—and easy to use.

Differentiating features 

Once the overall technology is in place, a video platform’s features are what set it apart. For schools that are weighing their options, those differentiating features elevate video recording and playback and will make or break how faculty and students use it.

While other educational video vendors limit recordings to a single video stream in standard definition, Panopto’s multi-source recording brings together multiple HD video streams into a single video that is viewable in an interactive video player. It also provides flexible options for captioning and accessibility, broadening equity for students with different learning needs and styles. And our Smart Search technology makes all video content searchable–everything from spoken words to on-screen words, slide decks and digital notes–giving viewers on-demand access to the exact information they need.

Best-in-class customer support

The ideal educational video vendor will offer customer support every step of the way, from implementation to execution to scaling usage. Customer satisfaction is more than being satisfied with the technology. It’s also about schools knowing they have a team that is dedicated to their success.

At Panopto, we pride ourselves on our exceptional Net Promoter Score (NPS), a measure of customer satisfaction that has been adopted by more than two-thirds of Fortune 1000 companies. NPS range from -100 to 100, with a SaaS industry average of 30. In our most recent NPS survey, Panopto received a score of 65.  We also have a renewal rate in the mid-nineties, reflecting our customers’ satisfaction with our technology and appreciation of our best-in-class support.

We know how important it is for schools to have a smooth implementation process and ongoing support that is accessible to students, faculty, administrators, IT and EdTech teams. We’re committed to the continuity of education, even in challenging circumstances, and to providing a rich, interactive, and equitable educational experience for all.

Which educational video vendor will fulfill your school’s needs?

As video evolves to play an increasingly important role in higher education, it may be time to evaluate your current partner. Do they have what it takes to help you now and in the future? We’re confident that we can meet your school’s needs and take your virtual learning to the next level, especially as it continues to be an essential part of teaching and learning. Let’s work together to make things happen.

Contact Panopto today to learn more about our higher education solutions.