Introduction
Kaltura is a software application that runs with Brightspace to allow you to post videos you want your students to see in the modules you create in Brightspace. It is far more efficient displaying these videos than simply posting them in Brightspace as a downloadable file. The compression makes it very playable on virtually any network the student may be on (including 4G LTE networks). Kaltura also makes it much more difficult for a user to scarf your video by preventing it from being downloaded. (FYI, students can always use a screen recorder to capture any video on the Internet but that takes a bit of effort to setup and use.) In addition there are a number of features inside of Kaltura that allow you to create video quizzes and display the screen and your webcam video simultaneously (neither of those are covered in this document).
Upload Video to Kaltura
So, let’s get to it. I am assuming that you already have a video you want to upload into the Kaltura environment. This video must be either an mp4 or an mov file. Either works. It cannot be a saved narrated powerpoint UNLESS that file is converted to mp4 or mov. So for this example, I have this video named testvideo.mp4 that I want to upload into Kaltura.
The steps will be to first upload the mp4 to Kaltura. Then Kaltura will compress the video using its own compression tool. You will then find the module you want to place the video in, and add the video to that module.
Upload Video to Kaltura
Log into Brightspace. Look for the My Media tab at the top and click it.
Click “Add New” and from the dropdown select “Media Upload”.
You may either drag/drop your mp4 into the grey box area or choose a file from the picklist.
You will see the green progress bar go across and an indication when completed. Add some tags that will allow you to search for it later. An appropriate tag could be the course number. Another could be your VUNetID.
Scroll down and click SAVE. You may leave the media as Private. The integration with Brightspace will permit your students to view the video.
Wait for it to save. This could take several minutes.
If you immediately go back to the My Media page you will see this. The video camera icon indicates the file is in compression mode. Kaltura is in the process of compressing the file. This could take several hours, depending on how long the video file is and how much movement there is in the file from video frame to video frame. This is happening on the server side so you can log out while this is going on and it will continue in background. Grab dinner, go out for coffee, or go to sleep for the evening. When you return the file will be compressed and available to link to.
When it is completed, you will see the initial frame and any tags that were used.
Add the Video to a Brightspace Module in your Class
Once you have completed the steps above, you may now go into a specific class, create or find the module in Brightspace you want to add the video to, and add the video.
Go into the specific class, click “Content” and add or find the module.
The video will be added to the bottom of the list of objects in the module. After it is added you can move the video up by clicking on its hamburger menu on the left and dragging it up the list.
Click Existing Activites to begin adding the video to the module. Click “Add Kaltura Media”.
You will now see a list of all of your videos in your My Media library, displayed most recent first (reverse chronological order). Scroll until you find the video you want. In this case it is the first one in the list.
Click the down chevron just to the right of Select corresponding to your video and click Large.
Scroll down to the bottom of the list in the Brightspace module and you will see your video link along with the length in time in minutes and seconds. (This short video is only 29 seconds long.)
You may modify what it is called here or edit properties in place like you would any other object you add to Brightspace. You can even provide display conditions just like you would any other object you add to Brightspace.
When the user clicks on that link they will see this. They click the white triangle in the middle to start the video.
If the user scrolls down using the inside vertical scroll bar they actually see a ribbon of choices at the bottom.
The two of importance are the diagonal opposing arrows and the 1x. If the user hits the diagonal arrows it will blow the video out to full screen. The user can than hit the ESC key to go back to this window mode. If the user hits the 1x, they will see choices for speedinig up or slowing down the video (note that making the video speed up makes the speaker sound like Alvin the Chipmunk). As the video is progressing the progress bar at the bottom will move to the right.
Clicking on the video while it is playing will pause it. Audio volume can either be adjusted here or in the system control panel for the computer.
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