Burli Software is excited to announce the addition of Western University’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies in London, Ontario to our wonderful list of post-secondary journalism and media schools employing Burli in their program.
About Western University and FIMS
FIMS had a very busy year in 2017. Not only did they name Burli NE as their newsroom software of choice, they took possession of a wing of a brand-new building and set about creating two completely rebuilt Broadcast Studios over the summer, implementing a large quantity of updated technology for students. So, to say there were a few moving parts getting the faculty ready for the 2017/2018 year would be a bit of an understatement.
Installing Burli (and Many Other Things!)
Still, the staff at Western wanted to be able to move to a next-generation newsroom program, and Burli was happy to accept and support them through their transition. Over the course of the summer of 2017, Burli made two trips to site and performed lots of remote installation work to bring the many workstations at Western up to speed.
We also customized the software. Naturally, most customers who are new to Burli are excited by the package, but still have ideas of what they would like it to eventually include. Either because the customer is familiar with another package, or because they’re used to an entirely different workflow, feature requests at installation are common. With a little hard work and great communications between Burli and the FIMS team, we were able to take care of most of Western’s requests over the summer, including some brand new features that have now become part of Burli NE for all our customers.
Burli found the Western staff dedicated and quick on the uptake. Despite all the other demands of readying the program for the rapidly-approaching school year, Broadcast Technical Services, Technical Manager, Erin Carroll and Media Production Specialist, Paul Buckley-Golder were terrific as the go-to technical contacts at FIMS. Other FIMS employees, including Program Coordinator Mark Rayner and FIMS Computing Services members Charlotte McClellan, and Matt Ward were also helpful in making it easy for us to complete the installation and training in time for a fresh new cohort of future journalists and communicators.
What They Had to Say
“When we were looking for replacement Newsroom Software at NAB, Burli seemed like a great fit. Burli’s easy interface and features that include publishing direct to Twitter, WordPress and other FIMS pages makes it easy for students to collaborate between the Journalism side of the program and the Communication side. This goes beyond the standard News software. Social media is the current wave of storytelling and this allows us to manage both.” – Erin Carroll
Burli worked with us directly to customize the software for the faculty’s needs. We can expand user capacity easier than before, and love having remote access allowing both our faculty and students to work away from the building. The integrated audio editing, photo editing, prompter and simplistic direct social media account posting introduced a number of key features that we didn’t have in our previous software. On top of that, they’re a Canadian company and they have technical support in Canada. All these elements were key in making this an easy decision to go with Burli. “ – Paul Buckley-Golder
Burli would like to thank Western University for their business, and we look forward to working with them for many years to come.