Streaming/Hosting Video Files – Best Practices

CITL provides a number of services to instructors for hosting instructional video.  Video streaming platforms provide the best user experience, as users are not required to download the video to watch it.  This is particularly helpful for students in remote locations and/or with variable internet connections.

We do not recommend you upload video files into your Brightspace Site directly (i.e. within Manage Files), as this requires students to download the file to view, and it will result in a copy being generated each time you copy content forward for future offerings.

You can safely and securely embed your videos from our video streaming platforms into your Brightspace course to create a seamless learning experience for students.  Below we have outlined the benefits and drawbacks of the various video hosting options.

Video Streaming Solutions (Recommended for hosting videos)

CITL Service Examples:

3rd Party Service Examples:

Important note:  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

  • 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 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.

File Hosting Solutions (Not recommended for hosting videos)

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

CITL Service Examples:

  • Uploading directly to Brightspace

3rd Party Service Example:

  • 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 (or operating system) based playback available on the system which 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.