Using Kaltura to provide video content

Kaltura is a video streaming solution available through Canvas. Instructors can use Kaltura to add video to announcements, assignment/quiz instructions, discussion posts, and pages in modules. Students can also add video to discussion posts or “text entry” assignments. Kaltura videos stream from an external server built to reduce image quality for users with a weak internet connection.

• Getting started with Kaltura (in our Learning Technologies Resource Library) - the basics of using Kaltura - if you have Zoom class recordings that you downloaded to your local computer, Kaltura is the recommended way to bring them into your Canvas course

• Editing automatic captions in Kaltura (pdf guide) - Kaltura can automatically generate captions for your video. This is a step-by-step guide to editing these captions.

Advantages of using Kaltura

• Simplicity: uploading a file is similar to using  YouTube
• Files are streamed to viewers, so you are not distributing copies of the media
• Currently there is no limit on the number of files you can upload
• No need to request a media account, all Canvas courses are set up with the Kaltura Media upload feature
• When used within a Canvas course, media files use Kerberos authentication. When moved outside Canvas, they become publicly available
• One file can be used in many courses or websites without having to upload it separately for each use

Considerations for using Kaltura

• You cannot generate a link (URL) to a video except when in a Canvas course. Only the HTML used to embed a file in a page is available
• Uploaded files are not instantly available because it takes time for them to be compressed. Usually the delay for video files is approximately the running time of the video (e.g. a one-hour video will take about one hour to compress). Audio files compress much more quickly
• It is not yet possible for students in your course to upload videos
• Only one person has ownership permissions allowing them to edit, delete, and reuse the uploaded file. For instance, if your TA uploads files to the course, s/he will own them. However, it is possible to grant edit permissions or transfer ownership to another user