The University of Prince Edward Island will not renew its licenses for the YuJa video platform and Blackboard Collaborate web-conferencing tool, shifting all video and synchronous course delivery to Microsoft Teams starting this fall. The Teaching and Learning Centre informed the campus community that Teams will become the sole supported platform for virtual lectures, meetings, and lecture capture.

Faculty members who have relied on YuJa’s advanced recording and storage features or Collaborate’s browser-based classroom sessions now face a hard transition deadline. IT staff must rework training materials and support workflows, while students will see only one meeting link instead of juggling multiple tools.

The Migration at a Glance

The announcement, shared via UPEI’s Teaching and Learning Centre, confirms that existing YuJa and Collaborate contracts will expire without renewal. No phased overlap has been announced; the fall semester signals a clean break. Key dates and deliverables remain fluid, but the campus is being urged to begin moving content immediately.

  • YuJa: A video management system used for recording, storing, and sharing lecture captures. Faculty embed recordings into Moodle courses. All recordings must be either downloaded or transferred to Microsoft Stream (on SharePoint) before the license lapses.
  • Blackboard Collaborate: A virtual classroom tool integrated with Moodle, used for live online sessions, office hours, and group work. All future synchronous sessions must be scheduled in Teams meetings.
  • Microsoft Teams: Already available to all staff and students via UPEI’s Microsoft 365 A5 license. The university will now position it as the only institutionally supported platform for video conferencing, screen sharing, and integrated chat.

What This Means for Faculty

Instructors who have built extensive libraries of YuJa content will need to export, transcode, or re-upload recordings. Teams does not natively match YuJa’s granular video analytics or in-video quizzing; faculty using those features must find alternative workflows—likely a combination of Stream, Microsoft Forms, and Moodle’s activity tools.

For live classes, the shift from Collaborate to Teams is less disruptive on the surface, as both deliver group video calls. However, Collaborate’s deep integration with Moodle (automatic room creation, recording links posted to the course) will require manual setup in Teams. Instructors will need to create recurring Teams meetings, post links in Moodle, and manage attendance records outside of Collaborate’s automated reports.

UPEI’s Teaching and Learning Centre has committed to offering workshops and one-on-one consultations throughout the summer. Faculty are being pointed toward pre-built Teams training playlists and the centre’s instructional design team for course redesign help.

What It Means for Students

Students will no longer wonder whether a link is in Moodle, YuJa, or Collaborate. Every live session and recorded lecture is expected to land in Teams or its related Stream player. This consolidation reduces cognitive load but also removes any fallback if a student’s device or network struggles with Teams. UPEI has not indicated whether it will continue to support alternative access methods, such as telephone dial-in for audio-only participation.

The loss of Collaborate’s anonymous chat and polling features may also shift classroom interaction. Teams polls and Forms can replace many functions, but the change requires both instructors and students to adapt to a new, more structured interface.

What It Means for IT Administrators

Support teams must sunset two platforms while ramping up Teams training at scale. Licensing costs, while not disclosed, are almost certainly a factor: YuJa and Collaborate require separate annual contracts, while Teams is already bundled in the Microsoft 365 A5 suite. Even modest savings can be redirected to other teaching technologies.

Administrators will also need to enforce data retention policies for migrating content from YuJa’s cloud storage to Microsoft 365. Export tools are available, but bulk migration scripting may be required for large departments. UPEI has not yet published detailed technical walkthroughs, though internal communications suggest SharePoint and OneDrive will be the primary destinations.

How We Got Here

UPEI’s move mirrors a broader trend in higher education: consolidating around a single productivity ecosystem. Many universities adopted Blackboard Collaborate during the pandemic’s emergency pivot, while YuJa was added later to meet lecture capture needs that Moodle’s built-in tools couldn’t handle. Microsoft Teams, already licensed for chat and file sharing, has steadily gained features that overlap with both products.

In 2023, Microsoft rolled out Teams Premium AI features, improved webinar capabilities, and better integration with learning management systems. Stream’s migration to SharePoint addressed long-standing video management gaps. For institutions already invested in Microsoft 365, the argument to eliminate third-party duplication became financially and operationally compelling.

At UPEI, the Teaching and Learning Centre likely weighed faculty feedback, feature parity, and total cost of ownership. While the announcement is recent, internal discussions probably began months ago, informed by usage data showing high Teams adoption for administrative meetings and ad hoc student collaboration.

Actionable Steps Right Now

Faculty and support staff should start the migration process before the end of the current semester. Below are concrete first steps, based on UPEI’s announcement and common migration patterns.

For Instructors

  1. Audit your YuJa library. Log in and take inventory of every recording you plan to keep. Delete outdated or duplicate files.
  2. Export critical content. Use YuJa’s download function to save MP4 files locally. For bulk exports, contact the IT help desk about automated scripts.
  3. Upload to Stream (on SharePoint). Drag folders into the Stream web app or SharePoint document libraries. Review sharing permissions so only your students can access.
  4. Re-embed in Moodle. Replace old YuJa links with new Stream links. Test playback on a mobile device.
  5. Set up your Teams class team. Create a team for each course, add students, and schedule recurring meetings for every class session. Post the join link prominently in Moodle.
  6. Practice before fall. Join a test meeting, share your screen, record a short snippet, and verify that it appears in the team’s Files tab.

For Students

  • Confirm you have the latest Teams client installed on all devices you use for class.
  • Check your university credentials can log in now; if not, contact the service desk.
  • Bookmark the Teams web portal as a backup in case your desktop client fails.

For IT and Instructional Designers

  • Build a migration timeline that completes all exports 30 days before the licenses expire.
  • Develop a Quick Start guide specific to UPEI’s Moodle-Teams integration, covering meeting scheduling, recording access, and attendance tracking workarounds.
  • Schedule department-level Q&A sessions to address discipline-specific needs, such as nursing simulation debriefs that used YuJa’s time-stamped comments.

What to Watch Next

As the fall semester approaches, UPEI will likely publish refined training schedules and possibly extend license expirations if migration proves slower than expected. Faculty should watch for integration updates to Moodle that could allow Teams to auto-create meeting links or push recordings automatically—features that remain on Microsoft’s roadmap.

The bigger story is whether other Canadian universities follow suit. With budget pressures mounting, institutions may see a similar consolidation as both cost-saving and user-experience improvement. Windows users, in particular, benefit from native Teams optimization, but instructors and students on Mac, Linux, or mobile devices should test compatibility early. UPEI’s experience this fall could become a template or a cautionary tale for campuses still running multiple overlapping tools.