News for and about the Internet2 community

["Dana Martin" <>]

Sept. 20 - ResearchChannel announced today that its digital asset management 
system, DigitalWellT, will be available as open source in first quarter 
2006. Developed over the past six years with the University of Washington, 
DigitalWellT is a suite of software subsystems that addresses the 
difficulties of sharing and maintaining a wide range of media assets among 
disparate departments, both within and between institutions. DigitalWellT 
underlies KEXP-FM's Webby award-winning website and ResearchChannel's 2,100 
program video library, as well as a number of other collections.



DigitalWellT enables and expedites access to high-quality, high-definition 
video and audio assets using next-generation networks. DigitalWellT 
streamlines and simplifies the acquisition, aggregation, cataloging, 
storage, discovery and delivery processes associated with managing large 
collections of digital assets. DigitalWellT also focuses on seamless 
interoperation with other digital library systems, thus enhancing and 
extending access to research collections and making new learning 
environments possible.



"Open Sourcing the DigitalWellT is an important step that will allow the 
higher education community to build on an extensive foundation of work 
contributed by ResearchChannel and the University of Washington in 
developing tools to better manage digital video and audio content assets, 
which are becoming ever more pervasive and critical to scholarship, teaching 
and learning," said Clifford A. Lynch, executive director, Coalition for 
Networked Information.



ResearchChannel invites partners to participate in this open source project. 
Interested parties should contact Jim DeRoest, ResearchChannel's director of 
Streaming Media, at (206) 543-6343 .



For additional information, contact: Sephora DeRoest at 877-616-7265.

About ResearchChannel

ResearchChannel is a nonprofit media and technology organization that 
connects a global audience with the research and academic institutions whose 
developments, insights and discoveries affect our lives and futures. 
ResearchChannel was founded in 1996 by leading research and academic 
institutions so they could share the work of their researchers with the 
public while collectively participating in advanced distribution and 
interactive technology experiments. Programs are shared in their original 
form, unmediated and without interruption. Today, more than 50 institutions 
participate as members and affiliates, and that number continues to grow.



Through cable and satellite distribution, ResearchChannel is available to 
more than 21 million U.S. households. The ResearchChannel website, with 
users in more than 70 countries worldwide, provides programs on demand and 
through a live webstream. The online video library houses more than 2,100 
full-length programs.



About the Coalition for Networked Information

CNI is an organization dedicated to supporting the transformative promise of 
networked information technology for the advancement of scholarly 
communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity. Some 200 
institutions representing higher education, publishing, network and 
telecommunications, information technology, and libraries and library 
organizations make up CNI's Members.

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