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• History

History of NJVID

In July of 2004, the Educational Activities Task Force (EATF) of NJEDge.Net was in discussion about an easy method to stream commercial video. Interest in digital video for teaching and learning further escalated as New Jersey faculty and students began increasing their production of self-created media content in online and blended courses accessible via institutional course management systems. Faculty needed a place to store and stream their content, but their local institutions were not always up to the task.

YouTube, iTunesU and other commercial resources provided outlets, but had some severe drawbacks including lack of storage growth, limitations in size, advertising, and preservation. In addition, these delivery modes did not provide institutions a way to stream their commercial video content. Commercial video is a rich resource for educational usage as it is designed with instruction in mind, but it demands payment for licensing.

In 2005, the savings that could be gleaned from those institutions as part of the VALE Consortium was calculated at $7,400 per institution. However, even once negotiated, the commercial video vendors often had no way to deliver to the end user. Bringing costs down for commercial video was a good beginning, but delivering streaming video to the end user was still an issue. What remained to be developed was the physical statewide digital video portal and repository that tied it all together, and one that would take it a step further by providing not only commercial video content but local and user-created content as well.