Feedback from the Knowmia listening session, and more updates

As announced earlier this month, Techsmith Knowmia, the multimedia creation and storage platform that New Paltz licensed in 2020, has decided to dissolve the Knowmia service for all customers. This unexpected news means we will need to migrate course content from this tool to another platform.

The evaluation process to select a new tool is underway and we hope to have information about which tools will receive a trial by mid-April.

On March 12, the Office of Instructional Technology (OIT) held a listening session as an opportunity for faculty to ask questions and offer input as we begin the process of finding a Knowmia replacement. Some key discussion points from the faculty listening session are listed below.

Those who were unable to attend the listening session but would like to offer feedback on this process are invited to use this Knowmia Feedback Form. Submissions may be made anonymously or with your name; those who ask questions and include their name will receive a response.

OIT has also created a new Knowmia Update page where information will be posted throughout this process. You can check this page at any time to review past communications and to make sure you have read all the latest news and updates.

Listening session discussion points

Migration Parameters: We fully understand that many faculty and staff are concerned with the ability to migrate both media content and closed caption files to the new system. Please be assured that the ability to smoothly migrate content and captioning files to a new tool is a primary criteria in our evaluation process. However, until the new tool is actually selected, we won’t know any specific details about how, when, or to what extent migration will be able to occur.  We will notify the campus as soon as this information is available.

While there are ways to create personal backups of content and caption files, we recommend that users hold off on taking these types of actions until we have specific details to share.

Timing of the Transition: We are committed to using Knowmia through the end of the fall semester, so faculty will not need to make changes to their fall courses. It is our goal to have a contract with a new company that begins as early as September or October 2021, so that the migration and training process can begin during the fall semester. This will give faculty time to adjust their winter and spring 2022 courses, since media content will need to be relinked from individual course to the new system, even if a full migration takes place.  If this timetable needs to be adjusted as we get further into the evaluation and contract parts of the process, we will provide updated timelines and information as soon as we have details.

Continued Use of Knowmia: We recommend that you continue to use Knowmia as you have been throughout the rest of the spring 2021 semester and through the summer and fall 2021 semesters.  Knowmia still offers the best options for recording content, storing content, creating automated closed captions, and providing analytical tools.

Some faculty have asked about putting content on our old system, Ensemble, and this is strongly discouraged for the following reasons: content on Ensemble 1) will not be captioned; 2) does not show analytics; and 3) will not be eligible for migration to any system. If you had content on Ensemble that was never moved to Knowmia, you can continue using Ensemble, but new content should be put on Knowmia.