Desire2Learn Announces Partnership With Kaltura, Extending Video Solutions To Clients

“Partnership with Kaltura further demonstrates Desire2Learn commitment and open approach to interoperability for clients”

Kitchener-Waterloo, ON, Baltimore, MD and Denver, CO,---

Desire2Learn Incorporated (Desire2Learn), a leading provider of enterprise teaching and learning solutions, today announced an exciting new partnership with Kaltura (www.kaltura.com), developer of the first open source online video platform.

The partnership provides clients the option to purchase Kaltura’s rich-media capabilities directly from Desire2Learn. Desire2Learn works closely with partners to collaborate and incorporate feedback into the Partner Program, http://www.desire2learn.com/partners a key priority for the company. Continuous improvement is sought with a number of new strategic initiatives underway.

“The Kaltura video capabilities that are now integrated into the Desire2Learn system will greatly enhance the learning experience outside of the classroom,” said Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura Chairman and CEO. “Kaltura’s video platform has already made a name for itself in the education world, with hundreds of universities and colleges using our Cross Campus Media Suite. We are delighted to partner with Desire2Learn, and look forward to working together to enable many more schools with next generation learning tools.”

Focusing initially on streaming and media management services, the addition of Kaltura’s video capabilities to the Desire2Learn® Learning Suite http://www.desire2learn.com/platforms/ provides instructors with a consistent high performance end-user experience. Video can be incorporated into courses. Students can be engaged with high quality video, inside and outside the classroom. New and existing courses, lectures, presentations, announcements and other information can easily be published all within their Desire2Learn learning management platform.

Organizations can:

*Launch both basic video features as well as advanced interactive features for online-education and training purposes.
*Include Meta-tagging for media
-Provide easy reference of materials
*Enable rich-media collaboration and interaction amongst their users
*Create a more student-centered environment
-Enable groups to interact with one another, through rich-media upload, recording and importing, video commenting and review, and collaboration with others in creating, editing, and annotating content
*Permit searches, downloading and sharing of media
*Access reporting tools to
-Understand how users are interacting with the media
-Conduct demographic and geographic reviews

“This synergistic partnership will provide clients with both a solid media technology service offering and the accompanying support all within their LMS,” states Jeremy Auger, COO, Desire2Learn. “We have a number of clients already implementing this feature, and Desire2Learn will also make full use of this capability for our internal training.”

Incremental resources are being incorporated to enable partners to work closely with the Desire2Learn platforms providing their clients with the best user experience possible. Key areas for focus include product integration, service, support, joint marketing initiatives, and client outreach.

Representatives from Kaltura will be at FUSION, the annual Desire2Learn Users’ Conference www.desire2learn.com/FUSION in Denver this week.


About Kaltura

Kaltura provides the world’s first Open Source Online Video Platform. Over 120,000 media & entertainment companies, enterprises, SMBs, educational institutions, service providers, platform vendors, and system integrators use Kaltura’s flexible platform to enhance their websites, web-services, and web-platforms with advanced customized video, photo and audio functionalities. Kaltura’s features and products enable to easily deploy custom work-flows involving video creation, ingestion, publishing, management, syndication, engagement, monetization and analysis. The free community-supported self-hosted software and source-code is available for download at www.kaltura.org. A commercial version of the software can be obtained at www.kaltura.com along with Kaltura services such as streaming, hosting, transcoding, analytics, ad serving, support and maintenance packages, and professional development. Founded in 2006, New York-based Kaltura is also a founding member of the ’Open Video Alliance’ (www.openvideoalliance.org), a coalition of organizations dedicated to fostering open standards for online video. For more information: www.kaltura.com

About Desire2Learn Incorporated

Desire2Learn Incorporated is a world-leading provider of enterprise eLearning solutions that enable institutions and other organizations to create teaching and learning environments that reflect their vision, goals, and branding. Desire2Learn and its subsidiaries support more than six million learners worldwide. Clients include higher education, K-12, and healthcare as well as associations, government and other leading organizations. Founded in 1999, Desire2Learn has personnel in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. For more information, visit: www.Desire2Learn.com