April 06, 2009 10:36 AM Eastern Daylight Time

GAITHERSBURG, Md.--ShareStream, a leading provider of digital media management and delivery platforms for higher education, announced this week that its technology is interoperable with Sakai, the widely deployed open source Courseware Management System. ShareStream’s interoperability with Sakai, is currently installed at two institutions. Sakai serves as the primary Courseware Management System at over 160 educational institutions worldwide. Sakai interoperability furthers ShareStream’s mission of fully integrating its platform with the university network and higher education’s scholarly systems to ensure that multimedia content stored in ShareStream is accessible wherever online teaching and learning, and research occurs. This announcement follows ShareStream’s longstanding interoperability with commercial learning management systems, Blackboard and eCollege.

“Sakai interoperability is a significant milestone for ShareStream in achieving its objective of integrating its platform with higher education’s predominant online learning environments, thereby ensuring that rich media stored in ShareStream is readily available in a secure, controlled fashion wherever online teaching and learning, and research take place,” stated David Weinstein, CEO of ShareStream.

ShareStream is a digital media asset-management and delivery platform for higher education that allows higher education institutions and university networks to store, manage, and preserve all of its licensed and institutionally-generated multimedia content (video, audio, podcasts, images, etc.) in a centralized system, and seamlessly deliver content into a variety of learning management systems running across university networks, while controlling content dissemination via higher education-specific digital rights management and security.

ShareStream’s platform, a turnkey solution for higher education’s digital media needs, provides the means to digitize large multimedia collections in an automated fashion; archive media assets with the appropriate metadata; store and manage media in an enterprise-wide asset-management system; tightly control access to copyrighted content via higher education-specific digital rights management, access control, security, and identity management; deliver media within online learning environments via streaming, downloads, and podcasts; author web 2.0 learning objects comprised of video, audio, podcasts, images, and segments from e-books; and audit all user and content accesses via a reporting and business intelligence tool. Implementation of the ShareStream platform allows institutions to realize a rapid return on investment through savings achieved by streamlining the process for creating, storing, and managing rich media content.

ShareStream was conceived and developed in collaboration with higher education at Georgetown University, where it is currently being used for over 350 courses. ShareStream’s clients include both not-for-profit and for-profit universities. ShareStream’s platform is currently being used to serve traditional “bricks-and-mortar” universities, career-focused colleges, blended-learning universities, and fully online distance-learning institutions.

About ShareStream Education Resources, LLC

ShareStream provides secure, enterprise-wide digital media asset-management platforms and streaming, downloading, and podcasting designed specifically for the unique needs of higher education. The ShareStream platform, developed in collaboration with higher education at Georgetown University, serves traditional “bricks-and-mortar” universities, as well as distance learning and fully online continuing education programs.