By Michela Arlia
Business Wire recently announced Brooklyn College’s selection of YuJa Enterprise Video Platform to serve its over 15,000 students.
YuJa is a digital media management platform with a vision to “serve learning enterprises within all sectors, including higher-ed, K12, government, healthcare, non-profit and corporate,” according to its website. Among its functions, the platform provides storage for digital materials, including audio and video recording. The move towards YuJa at BC comes after Blackboard, the college’s current technological platform for education, announced it will soon no longer support key features needed for instruction.
“Currently, Brooklyn College uses Illlumira/NJVid as its digital media management platform,” wrote Mary Mallery, chief librarian and executive director of Academic Information Technology, to The Vanguard. “In future releases of the Blackboard LMS, Illumira will no longer be accessible, so a change was necessary. As we phase in implementation and migrate current digital assets over the next six months, YuJa will replace Illumira/NJVid.”
The selection of YuJa for Brooklyn College came over the course of a year’s worth of contracts, negotiations, and testing of various digital media platforms. Since YuJa is currently used by many other CUNY campuses, including Hunter and Baruch, Mallery told The Vanguard that it was always “our first choice.”
The YuJa platform is not a replacement of the Blackboard LMS system, but rather a needed addition, according to Mallery. YuJa will be implemented by fall 2023.
Its main use for BC will include the ability for digital media materials to be “created, stored, and accessible through Blackboard as well as for digital media material in the BC Archives and Special Collections,” wrote Mallery.
Positives to come out of this new partnership with BC and YuJa is the ability for videos and other digital content in the classroom to be easily accessible for students and faculty alike.
“Among the positive course-related outcomes will be the ease and ability of instructors to post course-related videos for their students to watch, as well as for students to create videos for assignments and have these videos accessible through Blackboard,” said Mallery.
For students who wish to learn more about operating this platform, as well as other information on the technology used on campus, you can visit the AIT department’s website at https://library.brooklyn.cuny.edu/library/about/events2/?view=zoom_workshops.