As an increasing number of education institutions explore ways to centralise their content, the drive to connect with other institutional systems has risen. Many institutions are experiencing the challenge of effectively and seamlessly discovering, using and managing lecture content. To address this challenge, institutions will now have the ability to strengthen the management of Echo360 content with an EQUELLA Digital Repository integration.

The enhanced integration will enable an academic to use Echo360 to record and store a lecture, which will be coded into different formats, and published into EQUELLA. EQUELLA has been configured to detect all Echo360 content, not only video files, which will enable the content information to be extracted from the system and tagged to the content. Once populated into EQUELLA, the reference can be linked into the many LMSes and portals with which EQUELLA integrates, along with any other content available in EQUELLA. The application will then stream the media from Echo360, where it is located.

Users will benefit from the following strengths of the integration:

• Powerful tagging, metadata and search capabilities for discovering and reusing Echo360 content
• Digital Asset Management for the content life-cycle and retention policies for Echo360 resources and many other types of content
• Seamless content creation and editing, with usage tracking for academics
• Easy access to Echo360 recordings and collaboration features for students

“The integration will utilise EQUELLA’s strong push to LMS functionality, which allows users to publish content to a course directly from EQUELLA, with advanced usability and categorising of content, including greater flexibility for course sorting and filtering. The EQUELLA and Echo360 integration will provide academics with the flexibility to easily and readily sort and use different lecture content within collections,” said Simon Wilkinson, EQUELLA Director of Product Management, Pearson.

The new Echo360 attachment will be released in EQUELLA 6.1, in May 2013.

“Institutions routinely create thousands of hours of teaching and learning content with Echo360, making it difficult to manage those assets,” said Steve Fitzgerald, Echo360 Chief Technology Officer. “Integrations with publishing and content management solutions like EQUELLA simplify the organisation of content so instructors can easily identify and reuse their relevant recordings today and in the future.”

The design for the customised enhancements to the integration was developed in collaboration with key partners, and aligns with the intention of increasing the discovery and usage of Echo360, as valuable learning content visible for EQUELLA users alongside rich media content from other sources.

Representatives from both the EQUELLA and Echo360 teams will be present at THETA 2013, in Hobart, Tasmania, from Monday 8th April – Wednesday 10th April, please visit our booths to speak with our teams regarding the new integration.

For more information about EQUELLA®, please visit http://www.equella.com

About Pearson

Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, has global reach and market-leading businesses in education, business information and consumer publishing (NYSE: PSO). The company provides innovative print and digital education materials, including personalised learning programs such as MyLab/Mastering, education services including custom publishing, content-independent platforms including the EQUELLA digital repository, and the Pearson LearningStudio online learning platform and OpenClass online learning environment.

Media Contact: Fiona Morgan, fiona(dot)morgan(at)pearson(dot)com +852 3181 0881

About Echo360

More than one million students in 6,000 classrooms at 500 institutions in 30 countries rely on Echo360 active learning technology to enhance their educational experience before, during and after class. Developed for educators by educators, Echo360 increases in-class participation with digital polling, provides a rich out-of-class experience by recording and sharing course instruction, and delivers deep usage analytics to help instructors gauge student progress in a course. Students watch, collaborate and participate on smartphones, tablets and laptops, wherever, whenever they choose. Echo360 was recognised with the Product Line Strategy of the Year Award from Frost & Sullivan, is CSIA-certified for outstanding customer service, and was named a Visionary Vendor in Educational Technology by IT research firm Basex. Echo360 is backed by Revolution Growth led by Steve Case, Ted Leonsis and Donn Davis.

For more information about Echo360, please visit http://echo360.com

Media Contact: Mary Young, myoung(at)echo360(dot)com +1 703 948 3043

– See more at: http://echo360.com/press-release/partner-release-pearson-announces-equella-digital-repository-integration-echo360#sthash.5QaTbOFh.dpuf