Author: smantle

Panopto Permissions Issues and Video Linking Best Practice

smantleBest Practice

There has been a widespread ongoing issue with students not being able to access Panopto videos in courses this semester. This error comes in many forms – Access denied, permission requests, or being redirected to the course homepage. The root cause of this issue is that Panopto is failing to automatically update the class list and the permissions between Brightspace and the Course Folder in Panopto. This article will cover how to fix this issue and prevent it in the future.

If instructors or students are experiencing this issue, please use one of the following options to trigger the permissions for students to update:

  1. Post a video in the course via Insert Stuff and have the students view that video first.
  2. Post a video in the course via Existing Activity>Panopto Video or Quiz option.
  3. Have the “Panopto Recordings” link visible for students to click on, an announcement would work for sharing this.
  4. Have the student open a new browser tab and log directly into Panopto at https://dal.hosted.panopto.com/.

Each option is explored in greater detail in the full instructional PDF.

Intelligent Agents in Brightspace

smantleBrightspace

Link to PDFEngagement between instructors and students is key in the success of any course, but in particular those that are online. Utilizing the Intelligent Agent (IA) tool in Brightspace can help instructors boost engagement in an automated way for a number of different scenarios. While not all communication should be facilitated with IA, the tool can provide instructors additional flexibility in their teaching.

The IA works by setting up pre-determined times and circumstances to send emails to your students, to gently nudge students or to provide congratulatory feedback. Initial set up will not require substantial effort, after you’ve chosen what circumstances make the most sense for your course.

Intelligent Agents in Brightspace [PDF]

ETD Welcomes Matt Goodman, Learning Technologies Specialist

smantleEducational Technology & Design
ETD's 3 person team
Left to right: Matt Goodman, Brian Lesser, Sondra Mantle

Educational Technology and Design is delighted to formally welcome Matt Goodman to the team for a one-year term as a Learning Technologies Specialist. Matt has been employed as a Course Builder since July 2020, supporting many Faculty of Agriculture instructors with the move to online course delivery for the Fall 2020 semester. In his new role, effective January 6, Matt will focus on providing advanced support and guidance for instructors in their use of Brightspace and other educational technology tools. You can get in touch with Matt and the rest of the ETD team by emailing etd@dal.ca . If you’d like to reach Matt directly, his email address is Matt.Goodman@dal.ca.

Updated ETD Winter Templates

smantleBrightspace

ETD’s Templates are visual and structural design guidelines that can help instructors organize and prepare courses for students, and have been specially developed by and for our campus. Prior to COVID, templates were used heavily in all online courses developed with the ETD unit, and have now been used successfully in many of our Fall 2020 courses. Beyond ‘colour boxes’ and structural consistency, the templates reached deeper into content pages and provided courses with their own unique, visual identity.

Streamlining our selection of templates was a strong initiative in the fall. Valuable student and instructor feedback gathered through surveys and through support requests helped ETD determine which changes were necessary in the deployment of three updated Winter templates.

Key changes made for Winter 2021 include:

Consistent and condensed suggested layout for Content
Students indicated confusion with different course layouts and designs. Our goal is to help inspire instructors to establish patterns early in how content is organized and articulate the instructor’s style of assessments and communication. The suggested layout won’t work for all courses, and is therefore fully adaptable.

Use of the Brightspace Calendar
Although use of the calendar tool was widespread in the fall, ETD is making a stronger effort to encourage its use this winter. Students reported relying on the calendar and found the courses that used this tool created far less stress. All that’s needed is to add start, end and/or due dates for all assessments and other critical dates or milestones within the course. We can help you with this, or show you how.

Encourage clearer language in Content links
Providing context by using descriptive titles (i.e. “6.2 Different Vertebrate Skulls [22:39 mins]”) when linking content is a simple but effective step that helps students prioritize, time manage, and gain a level of control in their learning. In this example, a student knows how much time they’ll need to view this lecture video and what topic will be discussed.

Link Assessments within Content
Assessments can always be found within their associated tool (i.e. Assessments/Quizzes), but when they are also linked within Content amongst related topics, students are more apt to find and engage with the assessment when they need it. Additionally, it can be helpful to link all Assessments within the Course Centre (as suggested in the Winter templates) to further reinforce their importance.

Create an Open Discussion for students to talk amongst themselves
Many students described feeling isolated from their classmates. One option ETD explored was to create a discussion forum where students were free to engage with each other and feel a sense of community.

Student Resources and Help module in content
Students expressed confusion with some of the features in Brightspace. ETD created additional Student Help Documents this semester to be included as part of the template package. This module includes links for IT and Brightspace student help, and Student Services and Mental Health links. Instructors can remove any documents they feel are unnecessary.

To provide instructors with additional explanation to our template thought process, ETD created three short videos linked inside each template. Linked in a hidden Information for Instructors module and also embedded in an Announcement (set to disappear prior to the start of classes), these videos provide helpful tips on using the template sites.

The videos can also be viewed using these links (Dal Login required):

Part 1 – https://dal.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=0f10fd96-c520-4b3c-9290-ac6b0120cda7

Part 2 – https://dal.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=8a513a0d-51e9-4634-a172-ac6b01224fe0

Part 3 – https://dal.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=05295312-fbec-4e5a-82a2-ac6b0123136c

To have a template added to your winter course, please contact etd@dal.ca. We can also set up your course structure and create placeholders for your content, if you attach a course outline.

Sharing Panopto Videos with Specific Individuals

smantleBrightspace

Videos that are posted within a course’s Panopto folder will be visible to students and instructors in that particular course. Outside of these circumstances, it is possible to share videos with additional individuals who are not part of the course, as long as they are within the organization (Dalhousie). An emerging, specific use this semester is based on the use of the Panopto Video Assignment folder for student oral presentation videos and the need for RESM course instructors to share these videos with individual students’ supervisors.

Sharing Panopto Videos with Specific Individuals [PDF]

Course Planning for the Winter 2021 Semester

smantleCourse Design & Delivery

Feedback from students during the Fall term has demonstrated that course planning/mapping is an essential step in preparing to offer a course online. Many instructors (and their students) benefitted significantly from taking the time, before beginning development, to map out how the course will be structured, how learning outcomes will be assessed, and what content & activities will guide student learning within each module/unit. By planning the contents of each unit or module, we can ensure that we are only including essential content and avoid overloading students with too many items to view or too many assessments to submit.

A Course Plan Template document (Course Plan Template) is one way to map out how you will organize your course and what resources you plan to include in each unit or module. This will help provide a clear picture of what the course will include from start to finish and will help simplify things when it comes time to create content. The first page of the template document provides an example of a completed plan for a module/unit and the subsequent pages have blank placeholders to fill in. You should feel free to use another template or method if you wish – this document is only one way of doing it.

Once you’ve created a course plan or updated course outline, the ETD office can assist in creating placeholders for your content within a Brightspace template. Email your documents to etd@dal.ca and we can help get your course space set up.

Using Panopto for Student Video Assignments

smantleBrightspace

Student presentations in a face-to-face class are both common and important assessments. While it’s true that this type of assessment will require some creativity and stretching outside of one’s comfort zone (instructor and student alike), it is by no means impossible to do successfully in the online environment. Further, encouraging students to communicate with video is a skill that many will benefit from in their present and post-university lives.

To avoid relying on synchronous delivery of student presentations, opt for a recorded presentation. The presentation can be created and recorded in a number of ways, that can each result in a video file that students can upload to a designated folder in Panopto.

Using Panopto for Student Video Assignments [PDF]

Best Practise for Video Linking

smantleBest Practice

Video has become increasingly common in all Faculty of Agriculture courses, whose typical points of origin include:

  • Videos linked and shared from another server, such as YouTube or Vimeo;
  • Your own video upload (i.e. a lab demo you recorded, a PPT recording, etc.) via Panopto; and,
  • Video recorded using the Panopto recorder.

For the first bullet point, linking a YouTube video is quite flexible, in terms of your choice to link or use the provided embed code. The latter two bullet points both should involve Panopto. Think of Panopto as our own, paid-for and password-protected YouTube streaming server. Although Panopto is not perfect, understanding its limitations and working with its strengths has resulted in an overall positive experience for students and instructors alike.

While it is possible to upload a video directly to Brightspace (thus circumventing Panopto) and then link that video in the Content area, we have received reports of serious issues in viewing these videos and it is a reality that linking video files in this manner will compromise many students’ ability to view the videos. Uploading videos directly to Brightspace is not considered best practise for several reasons:

  • Low bandwidth users will experience difficulties viewing the videos;
  • Some users may be using devices or browsers that will not allow viewing the videos; and,
  • The videos will not be available for students using the Panopto app (that allows exclusively in-app video download for offline viewing).

Visit our blog post, “How to Link Panopto Videos in Your Course” for specific instructions on how to make your videos available for all students.

For assistance in linking or sharing videos from YouTube, or with uploading and linking Panopto videos, please contact etd@dal.ca.

Note: factors such as bitrate, aspect ratio, file size, and video length can all impact the time it takes for a video to upload and process. If you are uploading multiple videos at the same time, expect increased delays. This is simply the nature of working with video files. Please allow adequate time for this process.

Grading Brightspace Assignments Anonymously

smantleBrightspace

Link to PDFThe ability to grade assignments anonymously eliminates unconscious bias during the grading and feedback process. When anonymous grading is enabled, instructors can only identify their students as anonymized learner names on the assignments (i.e. Anonymous User 1). It is imperative that instructors inform their students to omit any identifying information in their assignment submissions. When grades are published to the gradebook, the identities of the students are revealed.

Grading Brightspace Assignments Anonymously [PDF]

Brightspace Submission Views: How to Provide Quiz Feedback for Students

smantleBrightspace

Thumbnail image for Submission Views Help DocThe Submission View is an essential group of settings that provide quiz results and a range of feedback to students after they complete a quiz attempt. The Default View provides students with an overall final score with no other details. Since a default view is released immediately after a student hits “submit” for a quiz attempt, the default settings typically work rather well, as the correct answers for all questions will not immediately be disclosed. These instructions outline how to create an “Additional Submission View” to work in tandem with a Default View for the best student experience.

How to Provide Quiz Feedback for Students [PDF]