Southern Cross University

Problem

Southern Cross University is a small regional school in Australia with a large distance education program. It needed a way to make its courses accessible to populations in remote areas and to students with disabilities.

Almost half of the university’s 10,000 students study through distance education with a large percentage residing in the Asia-Pacific region. Because government funding to universities in Australia is linked to the number of students who graduate rather than enrollment figures, student attraction, engagement and retention is a major priority.

“Engaging students is incredibly important, particularly in a very competitive tertiary sector in Australia,” said Tim Lane, Manager of Client Services and Security, Southern Cross University.

Solution

Southern Cross University expanded its Mediasite deployment campus-wide.

Through a major AV expansion project, the university added Mediasite to all classrooms across its three campuses so that every lecture could be recorded and available for students live and on-demand in their learning management system, Blackboard. The university also increased using My Mediasite Desktop Recorder for faculty and staff to create and share videos, lectures and assignments from any device and location.

Result

Before the expansion, the university’s 4,025 Mediasite videos had garnered about 82,000 views. Now, there are 7,500 videos with 174,000 views, a 100 percent growth in a short amount of time.

“Mediasite has significantly extended our local and global reach, reduced our attrition rates and attracted and engaged more students by strengthening our distance and flexible learning offerings. Since every single lecture is provided online, students don’t need to be on campus, and the content is much more engaging than just written material,” Lane said.

Not only has Mediasite solved that problem, but it’s also changed the way faculty teach. They’re producing videos to address a range of popular topics and are using Mediasite’s powerful analytics to keep track of student viewing habits and improve content and delivery.

“Faculty are increasingly editing lectures in Mediasite down to small five to 10 minute segments to maintain students’ attention span. Students simply love this way of teaching. There has been a dramatic increase in student viewing attention to the video lectures, and grades have increased since introducing Mediasite and My Mediasite into classrooms,” Lane said. “Before Mediasite, we didn’t have a competitive advantage. Now we do, and the world is at our fingertips.”