Panopto recordings
Panopto is a video learning platform that is integrated with Canvas.
Zoom recordings
Getting started with Zoom recordings and embedding them into Canvas.
Lecture theatre recordings (LTR)
Tips for lecture theatre recordings and Zoom enabled rooms.
Upload video to Panopto
Upload video recordings to Panopto and embed them into Canvas.
Panopto or Zoom: Which should you use for teaching online?
Zoom and Panopto allow you to create recordings of online meetings, but they have different strengths and meet different needs for online work and teaching.
Using Zoom for synchronous remote teaching activities
Zoom is a multi-party, video conferencing application that allows you to meet with students online when you cannot meet in-person. It is best suited for interactive discussions and can be used for one-on-one meetings such as office hours, small classes, and even large classes. Instructors can share the Zoom recordings via a direct link or upload to Panopto.
Using Panopto to upload, record, edit, and manage teaching videos
Panopto is a video management solution available through Canvas. The tools are best suited for pre-recorded lectures, flipped classroom, or live webcasts. Instructors can use Panopto to record themselves and/or their screens and easily share the recording back out to students through announcements, assignment/quiz instructions, discussion posts, and pages in modules.
Review the feature comparison below to determine how and where to best use each tool. Both tools are available at no cost to faculty, students, and staff.
Learn more about Panopto and Zoom.
Feature / Tool | Zoom | Panopto |
---|---|---|
Join by phone | Yes | No |
Interactive discussions |
|
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Easy sharing of recordings | Zoom recordings stored in the cloud are available to meeting participants in their Previous Meetings. |
|
Playback features |
|
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Display control |
|
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User view |
| Users can view two screens. By default, the main screen (PC/Mac), but users can choose which source is larger, or display a full screen of one source. |
Chat | Each user can post a question or comment during the meeting to everyone in the meeting or to an individual participant. This chat conversation can be saved to the local computer when the meeting ends. |
|
Assessment use | No |
|
Breakout rooms | Yes, meeting host can create. | No |
Mobile friendly | Yes. Download the Zoom mobile app. | Yes. Panopto is available via mobile browser or app. |
Recording lifespan |
|
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Students can schedule and start study sessions | Yes, students can use free Zoom license. | No |
Analytics | Only for Administrators. | Yes, each video has analytic report for Creators. |
Types of recordings
Reuse past lecture recordings
The Lecture Capture policy: “41. All recordings are to be stored until the end of the next corresponding teaching term following delivery of the course.”
- To reuse earlier recordings that were stored in Mediastore, follow the steps for downloading these and uploading video to Panopto.
- Mediastore recordings that are older than 12 months are moved to an archive folder. They are then deleted after 6 months (18 months total).
- If recordings need to be reused after they have been moved to the archive folder they can be requested via Staff Service Centre.
- Unlike Mediastore, recordings stored within Panopto do not expire.
Video and audio recordings in Canvas
Recording video or audio can be achieved directly from Canvas’ page editor using a webcam-enabled laptop or PC, or a camera and microphone attached to your PC/laptop. Canvas’ Page Editor also enables you to upload pre-recorded videos. The recording has 500MB size limit.
Screen capture for Windows and Apple devices
Panopto (Windows and Mac)
- Panopto allows you to record screencasts right from within your browser. You are able to trim sections from your video and it provides auto-captioning for accessibility. Its integration with Canvas makes it easy to share videos with the class.
Zoom (Windows and Mac)
- Another relatively simple way to record your screen is with Zoom. Please review the guides for Zoom, in particular, the instructions for recording with Zoom and screen sharing in Zoom.
Windows
- A tool that offers more post editing options for screen-capture video is BB Flashback Pro. you can record and edit your screen, enhance the video with sound clips, add text and images, and publish in multiple formats. This software is available to install via the Software Centre (only available on University issued devices and requires VPN access).
- BB Flashback Express is free to download and like the pro version, can record the screen, capture webcam, add commentary with no time limits or watermarks. However, unlike the Pro version, it does not include the editing suite or the ability to add text, images or sounds.
Apple devices
- Mac computer: QuickTime Player has a screen-recording feature.
- iPhone and iPad: In iOS 11 or later, and iPadOS, you can create a screen recording and capture sound on your iPhone and iPad.
Record using mobile devices (phone or tablet)
- View the guides on filming with a mobile device and creating video assignments.
- Or set up your smartphone as a document camera.
- To avoid using up your Canvas file quota (5GB), we recommend that staff upload recordings to Panopto.
Webcams are available to borrow from the Learning Environment Support Unit. Phone +64 9 923 4800, internal (ext. 84800). For other recording requirements e.g., tripod, camera or laptop, contact your Faculty Delegate.
Record narration in PowerPoint
Use Panopto to record your PowerPoint presentation. Panopto includes auto-generated captioning for accessibility.
- From your Canvas course, navigate to the Panopto page and click Open in Panopto icon; this gives you more screen ‘real estate’ to work with.
- Next, follow this instructional video to record your PowerPoint presentation. Decide whether to use your camera while presenting, or just record a voice-over.
- If PowerPoint is not installed on your computer, consider using PowerPoint Online. Log in with your University of Auckland Microsoft account, e.g. jblo001@uoa.auckland.ac.nz, then click the PowerPoint icon.
Note: You do not need to turn on auto-captioning in PowerPoint because Panopto will create captions automatically.
See also
- Viewing presenter notes while recording PowerPoint
- Embed the video into Canvas (Announcements, Assignments, Pages etc.)
- UoA branded Start/End slides – PPT
Additional guides
Provide a transcript for accessibility
Staff are encouraged to provide a video transcript for accessibility. You can do this through Microsoft Word Online.* Word allows you to upload your MP4 recording via the ‘Transcribe’ feature. You will be able to transcribe up to 300 minutes of video per month.
- View the instructions from Microsoft to transcribe your recordings (scroll down to the heading called ‘Upload an audio file’). The transcript will label each paragraph with a placeholder name of who’s speaking, e.g. ‘Speaker 1’. If you don’t require labels (e.g. there is only one voice on the video), follow the steps that describe how delete them by means of the ‘relabel’ feature.
- Click Add all to document then download a PDF copy. In Word Online, click File > Save As > Download as PDF.
- Upload the document to your Canvas course via the Upload Document function, then insert a link to your document next to the video.
- Some students may also benefit from Google’s Live Caption feature, whereby captions are provided in Google Chrome browser, whenever they play a video.
* log in to Word Online using your University of Auckland Microsoft account, e.g. jblo001@uoa.auckland.ac.nz, then click the Word icon.
Video editing
Recordings from the lecture capture system will be released to students – via the Panopto Video menu in your canvas course – 24 hours after the lecture. If you need to make edits to the recording, you should do so within this time frame.
These editing apps allow for basic editing features such as, trimming and splitting.
- Panopto’s editing features include trimming sections of your video and splicing in secondary video clips, PDF slides, webpages or YouTube clips. See the guides on the Panopto support site for advanced editing.
- If you want to get creative and manipulate a video or post-produce a series of video clips, consider the built-in Windows 10 Video Editor, or Apple Mac alternatives like QuickTime Player or iMovie for iPhone or iPad.
Note: Although Zoom Cloud recordings allows you to set the IN and OUT points of your recording, this only takes effect if you share the video from the Zoom platform. However, we do not recommended sharing Zoom Cloud recordings with students because they expire after 60 days. A better solution is to integrate Zoom with Panopto so the recordings are uploaded to Panopto automatically. You can then edit the video using Panopto.
Upload video to Panopto
To avoid using up your Canvas file quota (5GB), we recommend that you upload your video to Panopto.
Reduce the file size of your video
* Note: If you create your recordings in Panopto, the file size is not so much an issue—Panopto will determine a student’s broadband speed and downscale the video playback if necessary. Therefore, these instructions are mainly for compressing super large files prior to uploading them.
Instead of creating one long recording, consider structuring the content into shorter, focused videos. This helps avoid large file sizes and students will appreciate the information being in ‘bite-sized’ pieces. However, if you have a video that you intend to upload to Panopto, and its file size is, say, larger than 1GB, compress the video so that it will successfully upload.
Compress your video using VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player can compress the video’s quality or scale. If you are using a University PC/laptop, VLC is available via the Software Centre or Self Service on Mac (only available on University issued devices and requires VPN access), or if you are using your own computer, download it from the VideoLAN website.
- Open VLC Media Player.
- Click Media > Convert / Save.
- Select the video file via the Add button.
- Click Convert / Save.
- Select Video – H.264 +MP3 (MP4) as the profile.
- Click Browse to select a folder on your computer where the file will be saved to.
- Enter a file name and click Save.
- Click Start and wait for the progress bar on VLC Media Player to finish.
- If the file is still too big, try again but this time, click the tools button
next to the Profile.
- Under the Video Codec > Resolution tab, change the Scale to about 0.5.
- Under the Audio codec tab, make sure Audio is checked.
Tips for recording video
If you opt to develop podcasts, videos of yourself speaking to camera, or narrated recordings of your slides, consider breaking them down into short chunks. Sitting down to record a two-hour lecture in one go is not hugely satisfying and it increases the chance of technical issues, whereas breaking the material up will help you think about reducing quantity overall. Students will also benefit as they can focus their study on specific aspects of the course.
Remember to:
- Make videos accessible to all students – provide transcripts and/or subtitles for self-created videos and lecture capture recordings (Panopto does this for you). A summary of what was covered will be helpful for students.
- Use plain English – avoid colloquialisms, jargon, acronyms.
- Chunk contents into a short and manageable size. Consider a series of short videos that cover key concepts.
- Using a script can help you talk more clearly, slowly and to the point at hand.
- Slow down your speech, enunciate, speak clearly and with the microphone well positioned near your mouth.
- Consider the environment you are recording from (external noise, background wall that will be captured in your recording).
- If you are unfamiliar with recording or using the equipment, it is recommended that you test before you record to minimise the risk of having to re-record. It might be good to record and see how you look from the viewer’s point of view.
Watch party lectures
A watch party introduces the concept of delivering asynchronous material synchronously. It is where you schedule a time for you and your students to be present online to watch a pre-recorded lecture. Students can ask questions in a chat window and you can answer them immediately.
Find out more about watch party lectures.
See also
- UoA branded Start/End slides – PPT
- University Media Productions team (for directing high-quality, scripted productions)
Page updated 19/01/2023 (updated Room Booking System link)