As many schools and business have gone to remote teaching, training, and instruction for synchronous classes, Mediasite has made it easier to make sure that the recordings of those lessons don’t get lost. With a few simple click and adjustments to a scheduled Zoom meeting you can have your recording not only automatically upload to Mediasite but also make sure it is directed to the correct folder to include in an LMS.
When scheduling a meeting in Zoom there are three simple settings that you can change to record and import the meeting to Mediasite automatically.
One of the most interesting features of the release of Mediasite version 7.4 is the ability to publish external content as a Mediasite presentation. If a video is published to YouTube as an example, this feature will allow you to create a Mediasite presentation that will play that video. Instructors will no longer need to link to the external content and have students navigate away from the LMS or Channel. Instead, any video that needs to be used can be posed within Mediasite using just the URL and some additional details.
Adding an external video to a Mediasite presentation can be done from either My Mediasite or the management portal. The steps are largely the same with the major difference coming in the look.
1. Beginning from My Mediasite, click the Add Presentation button.
2. On the Add Media page, choose the option for Link External video.
3. The external video URL or embed code is required.
4. Depending on the source, the video thumbnail and name will automatically populate from the external source.
5. Enter a description is one is desired.
6. Click Create External Presentation.
1. Beginning from the Management portal, navigate to the desired folder.
2. Click Add New and select External Video.
3. The external video URL or embed code is required.
4. Depending on the source, the video thumbnail and name will automatically populate from the external source.
5. Enter a description is one is desired and any additional metadata as desired.
6. Click Create External Presentation.
Once the presentation is created with the external media, it can be managed as any other Mediasite presentation. This includes security and sharing.
Since the videos exist outside of Mediasite there are a few limitations including editing, captions and some of the engagement features.
Canvas is an incredibly popular LMS among colleges and universities. Not only does it integrate seamlessly with Mediasite it is user friendly for both instructors and students. The integration of Mediasite with Canvas has a new feature, the ability for students to submit video-based assignments. If you have been following along with Mediasite for the past several releases you have seen this feature previously come to Moodle and Brightspace. With Canvas, the workflow is similar from a high level however there are key differences with each step. Once enabled in the LMS, to complete a video assignment there are three primary steps
The first step in using the video-based assignment submission is on the instructor. As an instructor you’ll need to create the assignment following the typical workflow with a few minor variations.
1. Navigate to the course within the LMS and select a Course to create the assignment.
2. Chose Assignments from the left-hand navigation and click the +Assignment button.
3. Give the assignment a title, description, and points as you typically would.
4. In the Submission type select Online from the dropdown and enable Website URL.
5. Save the assignment.
When a video-based assignment is created, students will have the option to submit a Mediasite video though My Mediasite.
1. Locate and open the assignment within the course in the LMS.
2. Within the assignment, select the tab labeled Mediasite Video Submission.
3. Choose Select Existing if the video has already been added to My Mediasite or Add New to upload a new video to My Mediasite.
4. Within My Mediasite continue to upload a new video or select the desired video to submit in the assignment.
5. From the My Mediasite Presentation Details Page, click Add Presentation to <Course Name> and select from the four options.
6. Back in Canvas, click Submit Assignment.
Once the assignment has been submitted by students it will require grading. The grades can be completed directly within the LMS. Instructors will follow the same procedure to grade a video-based assignment that would be followed for any other assignment. The difference is that instructors should watch the submitted video prior to administering a grade.
Accessibility has been and continues to be a priority for developing Mediasite. The release of 7.4 has a whole host of accessibility improvements and updates that range from the more apparent to more subtle features that you might only notice if you go looking for them. Regardless of how obvious a feature may seem it will help ensure that Mediasite content can be viewed, accessed and used by anyone.
One of the most prominent accessibility features of this release is the ability to add Audio Descriptions to a Mediasite video. When added, Audio Descriptions further improve the accessibility of visual content for individuals with limited or no vision. In addition to the audio of the video, a description of on-screen content will be played as well. Within Mediasite, Audio Description files can be uploaded either from My Mediasite or within the Management portal.
Once the Audio description file has been added to the video, it will be available as a feature during playback. When clicked, the audio descriptions will play along with the presentation audio.
The Mediasite Caption editor is getting a familiar update for those that use IBM Watson. Automated captions provided by and AI captioning tool are a cost-effective way to add captions and speech to text to your videos. However, AI captioning is not nearly as accurate as human captioning. With that being know, a confidence score has been added to AI captions from 3Play. There are two aspect to this feature that will have an impact.
The confidence score is the threshold at which captions will be automatically displayed. By changing this you will define the accuracy of automatically displayed captions on a per word basis i.e. a confidence score of 90% means that 90% of the words must be accurately provided by 3Plays AI captioning. The confidence score can be set using the site property, CaptioningMinimumConfidenceScore using System Manager.
Within the Caption Editor, the captions will be displayed with three distinct aspect that come in to play.
With accessibility a major area of focus for Mediasite, many of the improvement go without notice unless they are needed. This is the case with the improvements that come to My Mediasite in this release. When using Mediasite with a keyboard only there have been multiple usability improvements and updated navigation with standard keyboard shortcuts and navigation. In addition to the keyboard shortcuts, My Mediasite has improvements to the readability by screen readers.
On the side of content management, a simple yet powerful feature has been an addition to actions. In addition to completing actions based on upload date and a specific date, a new option has been added to complete actions based on the last viewed date.
To utilize this great new content management feature, you need to start by adding an action. This can be done in the Management portal on either a presentation or template, or within My Mediasite. From within My Mediasite:
Troubleshooting log in errors is another improvement on the management side of Mediasite. Within the Management portal it is possible to audit and run a report on log in errors.
The resulting Excel file will display any login attempts.
