Hosting & Sharing Recordings

CITL provides a number of services to instructors for hosting and sharing instructional videos. You can safely and securely upload your videos to CITL’s video hosting platforms and then embed them into your Brightspace course to create a seamless learning experience for students.

Video streaming platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo also provide a good user experience, as users are not required to download videos to watch them. This is particularly helpful for students in remote locations and/or with variable internet connections.

Listed below are the various video sharing options.

NOTE: We do not recommend uploading video files directly into Brightspace (i.e., through the Content tool or Manage Files), as this requires students to download the file to view.

Recommended: Video Streaming

CITL Solutions

  • CITL’s Video Uploader
  • CITL’s On Demand video streaming service (used for online course video streaming or larger videos not suitable for other solutions)
  • Media Library in Brightspace (more information coming soon)
  • Video Note in Brightspace – A tool that allows instructors to generate short recordings (30 minutes) or upload pre-recorded videos (less than 1 GB).

3rd Party Solutions

IMPORTANT: Please review the terms of use when considering using any third-party applications for creating course content. Once a video is uploaded, its use is governed by the terms of use for the application.

Benefits

  • This method provides adaptive streaming playback for users. Adaptive streaming will adjust the playback quality of the video to provide a smooth experience regardless of the users’ device and internet connection.
  • Students cannot (easily) download videos from the service. This minimizes the chance that the videos will be copied and shared.
  • You only have to upload the video once. You then take the embed code that has been generated for your video, and place it in your content tool. As you copy content between courses, the embed code will stay the same. If you ever need to make a change to the video, you will only have to look back at the original tool.

Not recommended: File Hosting

CITL does not recommend sharing instructional videos via a “file hosting” solution and recommends that you consult with us for other viable options. 

CITL Examples

  • Uploading directly to Brightspace (i.e., through the Content tool or Manage Files)

3rd Party Examples

  • Dropbox
  • Google Drive
  • One Drive

Drawbacks

  • File hosting solutions, while potentially secure, do not provide adaptive streaming playback for users.
    • The video will be played back via http progressive download, meaning the video file needs to be downloaded to the device during playback.  
    • It does not adapt to network conditions.
  • Videos embedded from file hosting solutions do not benefit from a high quality video player, and instead rely on browser-based (or operating system based) playback available on the system that is used to access the recording (i.e., dependent upon what the student has available).
  • Students can download and easily share copies of the recordings. 
  • As you copy content between courses in Brightspace, you are also making copies of that video; thus, any changes or edits must be made in each individual copy. These copies could also introduce permission issues if embed codes are created incorrectly and point to videos in older courses.  It will appear to work for you, but all students will receive an error.