This article addresses commonly-asked questions about sharing your Kaltura media. We should note that in this context, "sharing" has as broad a context as possible. That is, adding collaborators to your media, putting them in MediaSpace channels, publishing them to Canvas media galleries, and embedding them. Use the list below to jump to a question (if desired):
General Questions
Adding Collaborators (Co-Viewers, Co-Editors, Co-Publishers)
Embedding Media
We recommend doing both, but if you'd prefer to do one or the other, embed them within your modules.
Presenting your students with a well-organized course - a logical module structure, clear learning objectives, plenty of context for what they need to consume, and so on - is a key tenet of effective instructional design. Create pages within your modules for your multimedia that make clear when students are expected to consume them, and use the rich content editor to provide context for how the video fits in with the larger course structure.
Many students, however, benefit from being able to review your videos (for example, prior to an assessment), so consider publishing them to the Media Gallery as well to help students find them easily.
Adding a co-viewer, like the other collaborator roles, will add the video to the user's "My Media," but they'll only be able to view it there. They can't publish it or edit it. Some possible use cases:
A co-publisher will see your video in their "My Media" and will be able to publish it to other media galleries, embed it in course elements in different Canvas courses, publish it to other channels in MediaSpace, and embed your video on public websites. Some use cases:
A co-editor can edit just about anything about your video. Below are some possible use cases:
Yes. Giving someone co-publisher access to your video will also allow them to embed it in their own courses in addition to publishing it to other Media Galleries. They can also publish it to channels in MediaSpace.
Yes. To be clear:
In a general sense, embedding a video is like taking one of your videos in "My Media" and plopping it onto a web page. In order for that to happen, you have to add some code to the page - and so you need to be able to edit that page's HTML.
In Canvas, Kaltura makes this easy with a button that you can click in the rich content editor. It allows you to select what video you want to embed, configure a few details, and then your video appears on that page in Canvas. Kaltura is taking care of creating the code and adding it to the page for you.
Within MediaSpace, you can find a so-called "external" embed code for your media. This is code that you can use on sites outside of Canvas to which you have edit access. (For example, I've embedded videos on various other knowledge base articles using embed codes from MediaSpace.)
No. If you want to embed your media on external websites (i.e. outside of Canvas), you need to grab an embed code from MediaSpace instead. The embed codes that Kaltura uses within Canvas are specific to Canvas and won't work elsewhere.
No. If you want videos to appear in your modules properly, you have to use the rich content editor to embed it on a page (or any other course element that uses the rich content editor).
It may seem like you can publish your video to the Media Gallery, visit its page, grab the URL, and add an "external URL" element to your module using that link. Unfortunately, that link won't work consistently.
Ideally you also shouldn't use external embed codes from MediaSpace within Canvas. The Canvas-Kaltura LTI gives videos that are embedded properly a way to accurately track analytics, in particular the identities of the students who access your videos. If you use an external embed code, the video will work, but the analytics won't be as detailed anymore.
No. Embedding a video won't make it appear in the Media Gallery.
Just type in the rich content editor with the cursor above or below the video. If necessary, use the HTML editor.
Sometimes after embedding a video, it can be difficult to figure out how to type in the rich content editor, particularly if it was empty prior to the embed. Sometimes you can click all over the place but not seem to make a cursor appear.
If you’re struggling to make the cursor appear, click the </> icon just below and to the right of the rich content editor’s text box. (If you hover your mouse over this, it will say “Switch to raw html editor.”)
You’ll then see the HTML code for your page. The video embed code will look something like the code below:
<p><iframe style="width: 800px; height: 450px;" title="How to Enable Downloads for a Published Video" src="https://canvas.ucsd.edu/courses/15712/external_tools/retrieve?display=in_rce&resource_link_lookup_uuid=0ceffb37-0484-42a3-a540-b266008bae9c" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" allow="geolocation *; microphone *; camera *; midi *; encrypted-media *; autoplay *; clipboard-write *; display-capture *"></iframe></p>
Just type some text before or after the video embed code. You can then click the “</>” button again to switch back to the rich content editor to get a sense of how things look. At that point it should also be much easier to add and format additional text.
If you can’t just press backspace and remove the embed code in the rich content editor, use the HTML Editor to delete the embed code.
If you want to remove an embedded video from a page, you can often just click your cursor after the video and press backspace/delete until the video is removed. If this doesn’t work for you, though, you can always enter the raw HTML editor by clicking the </> icon below the text box. Be on the lookout for text that looks like this:
<p><iframe style="width: 800px; height: 450px;" title="How to Enable Downloads for a Published Video" src="https://canvas.ucsd.edu/courses/15712/external_tools/retrieve?display=in_rce&resource_link_lookup_uuid=0ceffb37-0484-42a3-a540-b266008bae9c" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" allow="geolocation *; microphone *; camera *; midi *; encrypted-media *; autoplay *; clipboard-write *; display-capture *"></iframe></p>
After you delete the embed code, return to the rich content editor and ensure that your video has been removed.