Northwest University, a private liberal arts university in Kirkland, Wash., has selected Panopto’s CourseCast across its campus to enrich students’ learning experience and prepare for a potential H1N1 flu pandemic.

Panopto officials said that Northwest University selected CourseCast as its lecture capture system based on its ability to create recordings of lectures instantly, so that students who miss class for illnesses, athletic competitions or extracurricular events could access missed lectures and critical course material.

After a competitive evaluation, Northwest University chose CourseCast over leading lecture capture solutions due to its low total cost of ownership and ability to produce digital rich media recordings that included video, audio and screen capture components. 

“By deploying Panopto CourseCast, we are not only enriching the learning experience on on-campus students, but helping those students who have to miss class for an illness, injury, athletic event or extracurricular activity,” Waldemar Kowalski, professor and chief information officer for Northwest University, said. 

Kowalski said that with CourseCast, faculty can record rich media lectures and post them online with ease, empowering students to access course material.

“New pandemic threats such as H1N1 are extreme examples of the increased need for solutions that allow students to stay up-to-date on their courses, even when they cannot be in the classroom,” Brad Winney, CEO of Panopto, said. 

Winney said that the company is proud that Northwest University has employed Panopto CourseCast not only to safeguard its campus against these types of crisis, but to help its students and faculty realize the full benefit of their classes before and after the fact.

In August, Panopto integrated its CourseCast lecture capture solution to Moodle, the fastest growing open source content management system, or “CMS,” in higher education. 

Panopto has completed this integration to provide Moodle users across the globe with access to a lecture capture solution that provides unmatched functionality, flexibility and value. 

With the new integration, joint Panopto and Moodle users can post CourseCast recordings to Moodle automatically, providing students with access to more engaging and realistic lecture materials.