Not long ago, administrators at Northwest University, a private liberal arts college in Washington State’s Puget Sound region, had cause for concern.

Northwest had received alarming news: nearby Washington State University had confirmed its first case of H1N1 flu. With more than 570 H1N1 flu cases already confirmed in the state, Northwest administrators sought to prepare for all of the possibilities.

As they began discussing new cleaning and sanitizing initiatives, they also grappled with how to help sick students get well quickly—without missing weeks of class time or risking infecting others.

Luckily, Dr. Waldemar Kowalski, a professor at Northwest University, had an answer.

Dr. Kowalski had been researching technology solutions, looking for a way to enhance the learning experience of Northwest students by reducing the stress associated with taking notes or missing class. He concluded that a lecture capture solution—which would enable professors to record and share videos of their lectures online—would be the perfect fit.

Confident of the benefits of lecture capture, Dr. Kowalski and the Northwest University Information Services Oversight Team began searching for a solution that could be deployed easily and cost-effectively across Northwest’s campus. After a competitive evaluation process, the team chose Panopto.

Northwest found deploying the Panopto video content management system (VCMS) to be easy and cost-effective. Panopto’s architecture used standard Windows 2008 servers, limiting hardware investments and helping to keep costs low.

Excited by Panopto’s innovative functionality, Northwest introduced Panopto during the 2008-2009 academic year. Initial feedback was so positive that the school began a staged campus-wide rollout the very next year.

Once Northwest had seen how video could support its classrooms, there was just no going back. Today Panopto is available in all of Northwest’s 44 classrooms, as well as in the school’s branch campus in Idaho for a degree completion program.

Northwest University uses video across campus in a variety of ways. Find out more about how this school is innovating with video in the classroom our newest case study. Download your copy today!