BCNET News
Second National Procurement for Web Conference Tool Now Available
Partners in the NREN award the second collaborative procurement to streamline web conferencing for Canadian education and research institutions
BCNET, working with its provincial and territorial National Research and Education Network partners is pleased to announce the second of two awards for a national web conferencing agreement. This agreement with BlueJeans will see its interoperable cloud-based video conferencing service made available to BCNET members. The announcement follows a national RFP issued this year to streamline web conferencing solutions for Canadian higher education and research institutions.
“The award of a second national web conferencing agreement is another achievement for the NREN,” said Bala Kathiresan, President of BCNET and Chair of the NREN Governance Committee. “We are pleased to lead the procurement initiative to offer Canadian institutions with the option to purchase two video solutions that are tailored to education.”
With the increased demand for online teaching and learning, Canada’s NREN Partners collectively identified the need for tools to simplify the experience for educators and students and offer a robust, low-cost, video tool tailored to the unique requirements of education. The first of the two agreements was awarded in April 2021 to Kaltura Virtual Classroom.
The search for a web conference solution involved a collaboration of NREN partners and stakeholders to share their requirements for a solution that would aggregate licensing for the Canadian higher education and research sector. In British Columbia, the BlueJeans solution is available to all BCNET higher education members.
About BlueJeans Meetings
BlueJeans Meetings transforms the video conferencing experience by integrating the industry’s highest-fidelity audio and video performance with incredible productivity features and a comprehensive security toolkit to provide a distinct competitive advantage for virtual meetings.
About the NREN
The National Research and Education Network (NREN) is an essential collective of infrastructure, tools and people that bolsters Canadian leadership in research, education, and innovation. CANARIE and its twelve provincial and territorial partners form Canada’s NREN. We connect Canada’s researchers, educators, and innovators to each other and to data, technology, and colleagues around the world.