Pearl Underpins Remote and Hybrid Learning at the University of Rhode Island
By Adam Noyes
The Pearl family of streaming appliances from Epiphan have always fit right at home in education streaming and lecture capture settings. They are easy to use and are fairly set it and forget it. They also have integrations with Kaltura and Panopto that make it even easier for educators to focus on what matters most- teaching.
Recently, the University of Rhode Island was pressed to find a straight forward, easy to use streaming system that would be powerful, and up to handling a heavy workflow, but simple enough for the faculty to understand. They turned to the Epiphan Pearl Mini and Pearl-2 to outfit over 30 classrooms.
Epiphan’s blog published a great case study detailing how the university achieved this setup. Check out some highlights from that article, below.
n early 2020, the University of Rhode Island (URI) wanted to deploy a campus-wide live streaming solution that was simple for faculty to use. The devices the university had on hand were too complex, requiring that the AV team bring in a specialist every time they needed to live stream.
With the pandemic, URI suddenly needed to enable remote and hybrid learning in every classroom, active learning room, and auditorium – fast. The solution had to be flexible enough to stream out to students at home and stream into the room when a faculty member had to teach from home.
Different spaces called for different solutions. For classrooms with basic streaming configurations (e.g., a talking head and slides), the solution was to use video capture computer software. But media-rich learning spaces like active learning classrooms and auditoriums required a more complex and robust solution like a hardware streaming encoder.
The AV team was looking at hardware solutions with deep Crestron technology integration because Crestron is the backbone of the university’s AV infrastructure. Two other factors were ease of use and size. Faculty had to be able to use the solution no matter their level of technical expertise. Additionally, the device couldn’t take up too much precious space on the lectern.
A short and easy search
URI Senior Information Technologist Jeffrey Levesque first encountered Epiphan Pearl-2 and Pearl Mini lecture capture systems at a Crestron Masters training event. Both devices offered not only deep Crestron integration options but also a rich set of features. Levesque noted Pearl-2 as a powerful video production encoder and Pearl Mini as a compact, user-friendly device with a large touch screen for easy video monitoring. When it came time to make a decision, he reviewed the options and the choice was clear.
“No other solution really fit as well. It was a no-brainer for us.”Jeffrey Levesque, Senior Information Technologist at URI
URI outfitted 30 active learning classrooms with Pearl Minis, capturing speaker video from a camera and a computer source. Audio was routed in one of two ways: directly into Pearl using XLR audio or USB, or through the classroom’s Digital Signal Processing (DSP) system. The AV team also installed Pearl-2s in three large auditoriums, where inputs included three NDI cameras and a projector source.
For URI, the choice of hardware informed the choice of the video content management system (CMS). Pearl’s direct integrations with Panopto and Kaltura narrowed the search to these two options. Ultimately, URI chose Panopto and was able to take advantage of the powerful scheduling integration on Pearl. After a lecture wraps up, all content gets uploaded to Panopto and distributed to Brightspace, the school’s LMS, where it’s ready for student access.
Check out the full article HERE.
Learn more about Epiphan HERE.