Re/Play guidance for the 2022/23 academic year

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During the summer of 2022, there have been significant improvements made to the Re/Play service as part of the DEO summer work and service improvements.

Move to a new LTI connection with Blackboard is complete

As with many of our tools, Re/Play has moved to a new, more modern, method of connecting to Blackboard (called an LTI) which will improve the stability and reliability of the system. This work has been completed successfully. For the main use of the Re/Play system, this connection will not be noticeable to users – lecture capture will work in the same way as before, and the recommended Re/Play course menu links will provide students with all of a unit’s collection of videos in the same way.

However, there are some minor changes to the way that content is manually added into Blackboard using tools like ‘Build Content’. If you add Re/Play videos to Blackboard, please refer to the information below on how to add Re/Play videos to your Blackboard course.

New guidance for using Re/Play

We have revamped and updated our Re/Play guidance to make it easier to find the help you need, when you need it. Please refer to the new Re/Play pages.

Additionally, the Central Teaching Spaces pages now lists whether rooms are Re/Play equipped (ie are set up to record lectures via the Re/Play recording boxes), or are hybrid equipped (ie have the AV equipment required to enable two-way communication for students both online and in person).

How to add Re/Play videos to your Blackboard course

Automatically recorded lectures are made available to students via the course collection, which is usually accessed from the ‘Re/Play’ link in the Blackboard left-hand menu. However, if you want to add Re/Play recordings (either lecture capture or uploaded) to specific sections of a course, there are several ways to do so. Some of these methods look a little different to last year, due to the LTI connection.

Our updated guidance ‘Re/Play videos: upload, enhance, share’ walks you through the recommended methods.

Note that these methods are recommended as they get the most from the connection between Blackboard and Re/Play, and should ensure the best student experience. This includes making sure students have the right permissions to access the videos. If you would like to use an alternative method, please contact the Digital Education Office for advice, to ensure that your students will be able to access the videos in the way that you would like them to.

Questionmark scheduled maintenance Saturday 15 October 2022 09:00- 15:00

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Dear colleagues,

Questionmark Scheduled Maintenance: Saturday 15 October 2022 –  09:00-15:00

The purpose of the maintenance is to deploy system updates to ensure the ongoing reliability, security and up time of the platform.

During this time all users may experience service disruptions. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

[Resolved] Re/Play: Missed Recordings

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The issue that was experienced on 26 September, where some sessions were not passed to Re/Play to record, has been resolved. This was caused by an issue with the provisioning app, which passes timetabling information into the Re/Play system. This issue has now been fixed.

While IT Services were working to fix the issue, we manually provisioned all recordings in order to prevent any further missed recordings. Therefore, the vast majority of recordings were processed yesterday (27 September) as planned. We sincerely apologise for any that were missed, or which were not the correct length. 

Recordings that were processed on 27 September may temporarily be assigned to the DEO as ‘owner’, so even though they are recorded and in the system they may not be immediately visible to the usual owner in their ‘My Re/Play’ area. We are working to rectify this situation, and appreciate your patience as we carry out our work on this.

If there is a recording that you need immediate access to – for example, for urgent editing – please email us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk with details of the recording, so that we can restore your access.

 

[Closed] Re/Play: missed recordings

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This issue is now resolved – see here for the update.

We are aware of an issue affecting the automatic recording of some lectures since 26 September. Although the majority of scheduled recordings were processed correctly, for some sessions the recording ‘red light’ did not come on, and the session was not recorded.

Work has been undertaken on 26 September to mitigate this issue for future recordings. 

Important! If you do not see the red light come on when you begin a session that you want recorded, please use Record Now to manually start the session. Full instructions on manually recording using Record Now are found from our Lecture Capture pages. The recording will appear in your ‘My Re/Play’ area, but can be added to your Blackboard course space in a number of ways.

In order for lectures to be triggered to record (either automatically or manually), they need to be held in Re/Play equipped rooms. The list of Central Teaching Spaces contains information on whether a room is equipped to record.

We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused by this issue.

[Resolved] Some Blackboard pages displaying incorrectly

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An issue was identified at around 5 pm on Friday where, for some people, Blackboard pages were not displaying properly in their web browser. The issue was reported to Blackboard, who took steps that fixed the issue on Saturday morning. Anyone who is still experiencing this issue should clear the cache in their web browser (using, for example, these instructions), which will allow the pages to display correctly again.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this issue. If you have any questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Useful start of term Digital Education links for staff

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  1. Daily DEO drop-ins 
  2. DEO training – now on Develop 
  3. Blackboard course design 
  4. Make your Blackboard course available to students 
  5. Tools and software 
  6. Online assessment – including planning and running tests, and electronic management of assessment workflows 
  7. Qwickly Attendance updated 
  8. Turnitin changes, including changes for students 
  9. New Re/Play guidance including the new Lecture Capture set-up guidance to avoid common issues 
  10. Central Teaching Spaces page now lists whether a room is Re/Play and/or Hybrid equipped 

For queries, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

[Open] MathType Equation rendering issue in Blackboard text editor

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A display issue has been discovered when using the MathType equation editor within the Blackboard text editor.  If you are currently using either Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge as your browser, you will notice that any equation, once published, will be displayed as plain text.  

It is recommended that staff and students use Firefox when required to view any mathematical equations, as the issue is not present in this browser.

This issue will be fixed in the next Blackboard update scheduled for the 6th October.

Questionmark scheduled maintenance Saturday 17 September 2022 09:00- 21:00

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Dear colleagues,

Questionmark Scheduled Maintenance: Saturday 17 September 2022 –  09:00-21:00

The purpose of the maintenance is to deploy system updates to ensure the ongoing reliability, security and up time of the platform.

During this time all users may experience service disruptions. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

Training and drop-ins from the Digital Education Office

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DEO training now on Develop

From September 2022, training courses run by the Digital Education Office (DEO) will be listed on Develop, the University’s learning and development platform for staff.  Academic, administrative, professional services staff and PGRs who teach can now search for and enrol onto DEO training courses by logging into Develop. In the Catalogue, you can filter by Digital Education Office under Topics or the DEO under department.

DEO daily drop-ins moves to Teams 

The Digital Education Office (DEO) will continue to run daily online drop-in sessions for staff, as we regularly receive feedback from colleagues that these are useful.

From the 5 September 2022, these will run via Microsoft Teams, to align with other standard University online meetings, instead of Blackboard Collaborate. Drop-in session times will remain 3-4pm from Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays and University closure days).

A new link will be available on the DEO events pages for staff to access the drop-in sessions. 

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.