Canal-U

Supported by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MESR) and coordinated by the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Canal-U is the leading platform in France for the distribution and promotion of French and French-language academic audiovisual content.

Open to all knowledge-producing institutions, the platform is designed to host, enrich, and distribute video and podcast content produced by the academic community. With more than 360 channels, 25,000 contributors, and 50,000 resources, Canal-U provides open access to a richly documented, multidisciplinary audiovisual collection, which can be used to explore and disseminate knowledge and science in a new way.

A platform dedicated to all knowledge-producing institutions

Specially designed for the demands of academic audiovisual content, the Canal-U platform is open to all knowledge institutions, regardless of discipline or methodology.

Universities, research institutes, laboratories, foundations, and more can create their own Canal-U channel and access a free, tailor-made service to host, distribute, showcase, and share their audiovisual content.

An open-access, multidisciplinary collection

Canal-U provides free, open access to a multidisciplinary audiovisual collection that encompasses all spheres of knowledge.

Interviews, conferences, symposia, documentaries, and tutorials are all available in video or podcast format, and organised according to three criteria, which form the building blocks of the catalogue: the channels of the contributing institutions, the contributors featured in the content, and the topics discussed.

Enriched and referenced resources

From captions and subtitles to transcription, chaptering features, audio description, and supporting materials, Canal-U provides all the tools required to enrich audiovisual content and make it more accessible to users. Canal-U also provides a comprehensive, detailed, and standardised documentation system ensuring optimal resource referencing and interoperability with information systems in higher education and research institutes.

Each resource published on Canal-U is assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to facilitate citations and referencing. DOIs are used to cite content and permanently retain associated metadata. The platform also offers a citation tool that automatically generates bibliographic references for resources.

A seamless and interactive user experience

The platform offers a wide range of features to carry out complex searches and browse the collection for related content. A faceted search engine and enriched metadata enable users to carry out targeted searches and explore new content on the same topic or featuring the same contributor. Each visitor has a personal account allowing them to manage subscriptions, view favourited content, and create and share playlists.

Exclusive access to French and French-language academic audiovisual content

As the leading streaming platform for scholarly content in France, Canal-U hosts more than 360 contributing institutions and offers an exclusive gateway to French and French-language academic audiovisual content. Fully open-access and free of charge, Canal-U provides a secure environment for building an academic audiovisual archive for all, and for the long term.

A platform committed to open science

Since its creation in 2001, Canal-U has been committed to the open science movement. Developed according to the FAIR principles (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability), the platform is designed to ensure that academic audiovisual content can be distributed and shared as widely as possible. OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) is implemented to ensure the platform’s metadata can be efficiently exposed and collected by other research systems and platforms. The integration of oEmbed technology enables Canal-U’s videos to be embedded into external websites and platforms, making it easy to integrate and access Canal-U content within other digital ecosystems.

From interviews and conferences to symposia, tutorials, and feature reports, the platform is an academic archive offering a visual and auditory gateway to knowledge both past and present. Comprising audiovisual content from more than 360 knowledge institutions, the Canal-U collection is enriched on a daily basis thanks to the meticulous and dedicated efforts of its editors.

• Collections: Combining symposia, conferences, interviews, and more, collections bring together video and podcast content based on a single event or subject.
• Reports: With long-format multimedia content combining text, videos, images, and podcasts, Canal-U reports offer users a new way to grasp the complexity and diversity of subjects.
• Live streaming: Institutions can stream scholarly events in real time. Live streams and replays can be accessed via institutions’ own channels.