Collaborate

illustration of students studying and learning using an online platform

Online Staff Training – Collaborate Virtual Classroom

Collaborate, Training /

Tuesday 14th November, 10AM 

Collaborate is a real-time video conferencing tool used specifically for learning and teaching. 

It allows users to connect online to view presentations, share applications and collaborate on documents. It has an interactive whiteboard, hand-raise function, on-demand polling and breakout groups. 

If you’d like to find out more, come along our online workshop. The session is for users that are new to the system, or those needing a refresher. 

Book on to the workshop via the ‘Staff Development Workshops’ page, from the staff homepage. 

illustration of students studying and learning using an online platform

Online Staff Training – Collaborate Virtual Classroom

Collaborate, Training /

Friday 3rd March, 10AM

Collaborate is a real-time video conferencing tool used specifically for learning and teaching.
It allows users to connect online to view presentations, share applications and collaborate on documents. It has an interactive whiteboard, hand-raise function, on-demand polling and breakout groups.
If you’d like to find out more, come along our online workshop. The session is for users that are new to the system, or those needing a refresher.

Book on to the workshop via the ‘Staff Development Workshops’ page, from the staff homepage.

What to do with your recordings in Blackboard

Leave a Comment / Blackboard, Collaborate, Panopto /

As you are probably aware by now, video files should not be simply uploaded to Blackboard. The files are far too large and will rapidly use up your module\’s data quota. Instead, videos should be uploaded to Panopto.

However, some staff have enquired about managing their Collaborate recordings, which raises a number of questions – how to link to them, whether to upload to Panopto – so we thought it would be a good idea to explore this.

Data Storage

Let’s start by looking at the way the systems manage storage.

Blackboard

Every Blackboard module has a default data quota of 1000MB. Where there is a genuine need, this can be extended, but the data quota of the entire University needs to be carefully managed, as exceeding this has a significant financial implication. Removing videos is an easy way to bring this down. Remember that any resource you delete from a module must also be deleted in the files area in order to impact on the data quota.

Collaborate

Collaborate videos are stored outside of the module on which they were recorded, so do not impact on the data quota. However, there is an overall data quota for Collaborate that also needs careful management. As a result, we are required to archive older videos, having recently deleted all videos recorded prior to January 2021.

Panopto

There is currently no data quota for Panopto storage as we are charged by the number of views. However, this is likely to change in the future as Panopto moves to a charging by storage model.

Should you move Collaborate recordings to Panopto?

Given that Collaborate recordings eventually need to be archived, some staff have asked whether it would be better to move all Collaborate recordings to Panopto as a matter of course. This is probably not necessary but there may be instances when it would be a good idea:

  • Will the recording be required for a long time? If students will need to access the video for longer than a year, then it might be a good idea to download the files and upload to Panopto.
  • Will the recording need to be deployed on future modules? Some resources may be of use to students on future modules, in which case a move to Panopto may be a good idea so that resources can be shared between modules.
  • Does the video need captioning? One drawback of Collaborate is that it does not provide closed captions, which may be required for accessibility. If you have students on your course who need closed captions, then uploading videos to Panopto may be a good idea, as Panopto does have excellent captioning options.

Bear in mind that uploading videos wholesale to Panopto is a significant undertaking for you as the course tutor, so you should weigh up these issues before you decide what will work best for you and your students.

Also consider that, although there is currently no data quota on Panopto, this is likely to be introduced in the future, so we as an institution will also need to manage Panopto usage. Therefore it’s probably a good idea to only upload resources to Panopto where you think it is really necessary.

If you have any queries feel free to get in touch at tel@worc.ac.uk

Removal of older collaborate videos

Leave a Comment / Blackboard, Collaborate, Panopto /

To all Collaborate users

Collaborate has been used extensively again this semester with 2377 recordings being made since 1st September to date totalling over 544 hours of recording.  Because Collaborate is a live interactive tool, many recordings don’t ever get played back, but the most played back recording this semester was in the School of Sport and Exercise Science with a huge 286 playbacks.

\"Collaborate

We now need to review our storage of Collaborate recordings as we are once again approaching the limit included in our licence. We are therefore proposing to remove any recordings made before 1st January 2021. At the height of the pandemic in Semester 1 last Year a huge 10,245 recordings were made and, as most of these are now over a year old, it is necessary to remove these from the system to make room for new recordings.

If you have any recordings you would like to keep please download them from your Collaborate area by 18th December and upload them to Panopto where they will have the added benefit of being automatically captioned. Please see our step-by-step guidance on how to do this. Any recordings made prior to 1st January 2021 will be removed from the system on 3rd January 2021. If you have questions or concerns about this, please contact tel@worc.ac.uk.

We also have some suggestions for best practice to help make the best use of Collaborate:

  • Only record sessions which will need to be accessed again.
  • When recording a long session, stop the recording during breaks or activities offline or in breakout groups.
  • If running a session with little or no interactivity consider using the Panopto webcast feature.
  • Delete any old recordings which are no longer required (statistics show that the vast majority of recordings are only accessed within 30 days of the original event)

 

Collaborate Gallery View

Leave a Comment / Blackboard, Collaborate /

Gallery view in Collaborate is now live! From April 2021 if you are the Moderator of a Collaborate session, you can make use of the new Gallery view, which enables you to see up to 25 participant videos on screen.

Click on the View icon in the top right of the screen to switch between views.

\"Collaborate

Blackboard will extend Gallery view to all participants later in the year.

Find out more from this short video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2050HbWeBs&t=96s

Collaborate Recordings

Leave a Comment / Blackboard, Collaborate, Video /

Text from Judith Keene\’s all staff email dated Monday 15th March 2021

The past twelve months have seen a massive surge in uptake of all of our learning platforms and the way in which staff have engaged with adapting to teaching online has been incredible.

We are now in a position where usage of our platforms is beginning to exceed our allocated quota from suppliers and, whilst we are keen for people to continue to use these technologies, there is a cost and management implication which we need to be mindful of.

With that in mind we are planning on removing all Collaborate recordings from the previous academic year. If you have any recordings you would like to keep please download them from your Collaborate area by 31st March and upload them to Panopto where they will have the added benefit of being automatically captioned. Please see our step-by-step guidance on how to do this. Any recordings made prior to 1st September 2020 will be removed from the system on 1st April. If you have questions or concerns about this, please contact tel@worc.ac.uk

We also have some suggestions for best practice to help make the best use of Collaborate:

  • Only record sessions which will need to be accessed again.
  • When recording a long session, stop the recording during breaks or activities offline or in breakout groups.
  • If running a session with little or no interactivity consider using the Panopto webcast feature.
  • Delete any old recordings which are no longer required (statistics show that the vast majority of recordings are only accessed within 30 days of the original event)

Please also refer to our recent blog post about managing files and videos within your Blackboard course.

TEL Workshops and Facilitated Discussions

Leave a Comment / Accessibility, Blackboard, Camtasia, Collaborate, Panopto, PebblePad, Training, Vevox, Video /

Between now and the end of March, we will be running a series of online workshops to help staff get to grips with a range of learning technologies.  In addition to our familiar sessions, we will also be running five facilitated discussions covering topics such as moving tuition online, student engagement and best practice using PebblePad. Staff will have the opportunity to share their experiences and learn new approaches from colleagues, guided by members of the Technology Enhanced Learning Unit.

 

Blackboard Made Simple  25th January, 10.15 – 11.15 
Collaborate Virtual Classroom  27th January, 10:15 – 11:15am 
Using Tests and Surveys in Blackboard  3rd February, 10.15 – 11.30 
Blackboard Accessibility and Ally  5th February, 10.15 – 11.30 
Facilitated discussion – moving to online teaching: what works?  8th February, 11.15 – 12.15 
Camtasia  10th February, 10.15 – 11.30 
Using Blackboard for Blended and Mobile Learning  12th February, 10.15 – 11.30 
Recording from your Desktop using Panopto  17th February, 10.15 – 11.30 
Vevox Polling Software  19th February, 10.15 – 1130 
Facilitated discussion: Good practice with PebblePad  3rd March, 10.15 – 11.30 
Assessing student presentations online using Collaborate and Panopto  11th March, 10.15 – 11.30 
Facilitated discussion: approaches to online assessment 17th March, 10.15 – 11.15 
Facilitated discussion: recording teaching sessions tips and tricks  25th March, 10.15 – 11.15 

If you are interested in attending any of these sessions, please sign up via the Staff Development Workshops pages on the staff portal.

Video Content Management – Important Changes

Leave a Comment / Collaborate, Panopto, Video /

The implementation of Panopto is now well underway. As part of the roll-out plan we are reviewing legacy video content in other systems.

Planet estream/Uniview

We are planning to migrate any video still in use from Planet eStream/Uniview to Panopto. Before undertaking this work we will be purging the system of any content that has not been viewed within the last 12 months.

If you have video content on eStream that you want to keep, please go to the item in the system and play it. This will ensure it doesn\’t appear in the not accessed list which we will be removing.

If you have any queries about Planet eStream content please email paul.baker@worc.ac.uk

The system will be purged on 14th December 2020 and any videos that have not been accessed for over 12 months from then will be permanently deleted.

We will also be disabling the ability to upload new content to Planet eStream from Monday 7th December. Any new content will need to be uploaded to Panopto, for more information on this please go to https://uwtel.co.uk/tel-tools/panopto/.

More information will follow on the migration process.

Collaborate Recordings

We are also looking to remove recordings from Collaborate that are over 12 months old.

If you have a Collaborate recording over 12 months old that you wish to keep, please download the file and upload it to Panopto. This will preserve the recording and add automatic captioning. Again for more information on how to do this please go to https://uwtel.co.uk/tel-tools/panopto/.

Any recordings over 12 months old will be removed on 14th December 2020.

Technology Enhanced Learning Support Sessions for Academics

Leave a Comment / Blackboard, Camtasia, Collaborate, Panopto, Training, Turnitin, Vevox /

Following the government announcement that Universities should move to online teaching by 9th December, we thought it would be a good time to reinstate the TEL drop-in sessions for academic staff via Collaborate.

 We know that it can be daunting moving your tuition online and sometimes it’s not always clear where to begin, or how to effectively adapt your materials for online delivery so that your students still get the most out of your sessions.

That’s why the Technology Enhanced Learning Unit will be offering drop-in sessions over the next four weeks for academics to pop in and speak to us. We’ll be there to listen to your requirements and help you bounce ideas around for moving your sessions online successfully. We’ll be able to offer suggestions on various tools that you can use to achieve your learning objectives and offer expertise on how to adapt your existing face to face sessions so that they run smoothly when you come to delivering them online.

Sessions will run from 10am-11am every Tuesday and Thursday, with the first taking place on Tuesday 24th November and the final session on Thursday 17th December. There\’s no need to book. Just click on the link below to access the sessions:

Join Drop-in Session

As ever, make sure that you are using either Chrome or Firefox to join.

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