Students not able to view some Re/Play recordings – 27 September

We are currently investigating a small number of reports of students not being able to view some Re/Play recordings in Blackboard. If your students need to view a particular recording urgently, and are having difficulty accessing it, we recommend that you delete the item and re-add it using the following steps:

  1. Log on to Blackboard.
  2. Select the My Re/Play tab at the top.
  3. Locate the presentation you wish to add as a content item.
  4. Ensure the padlock symbol in the bottom right corner is unlocked. If not, click on it.
  5. Navigate to the area in your course where you want to embed the presentation.
  6. Ensure Edit Mode is ON.
  7. From the menu at the top of the page, select Build Content and then Mediasite – link to Presentation/s.
  8. Enter the name of your presentation in the search box and select the grey Search Presentations button.
  9. When located, click in the box to left and Submit.
  10. On the next screen, click OK.
  11. Your presentation will now appear at the bottom of the page and can be moved to the location you wish.

If you have a large number of recordings that urgently need re-enabling, or any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Re/Play ‘Record Now’ for ad hoc recording

As part of our summer programme of work on Re/Play, we have now launched the new podium PC app for the recorders in equipped rooms, ‘Record Now’. You can use this application to record sessions in rooms where the activity is not timetabled to be recorded.

1. Log in to the room’s PC and click the icon to run ‘Record Now’.
2. If prompted to log on please use the Grey Authenticate button NOT the link to Mediasite log in.
3. Give a title to the presentation.
4. Choose how long to record for (the default is 55 minutes, but this can be adjusted in 5-minute intervals).
5. Choose how and what you want to record:

  • ‘Slides’ records a slow frame rate – not suitable for video playback or animation
  • ‘Video’ is suitable for video playback, animation and on-screen pointers
  • ‘Camera’ (if available) will record you as well as your slides.

6. Pause or end the recording early by pressing ‘Pause Recording’ or ‘Stop Recording’. You can also use the lectern button to do this (short press to pause/restart, long press to stop).
7. Your recording will appear in ‘My Re/Play’.

For an illustrated version of this guidance please follow this link

Please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk with any queries.

Re/Play downtime – Saturday 18th September, 12am-4am

On 18 September, Mediasite will be moving our Re/Play service to a new data centre to provide an increase in service reliability and to support our live streaming provision; this work will take place between 12am and 4am. During this period, Re/Play will not be available for use. Although the service will be available after this time, for the duration of Saturday 18th September the service should be viewed as at risk, and just used as read-only. We cannot guarantee that any changes made during Saturday will be saved or that any recordings made will be uploaded to the service.

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

Re/Play automated streaming of live teaching

We are pleased to confirm that from 16 September the ability to request automated streaming of live teaching will be available via Re/Play.

Automated streaming needs to be requested and is only available in rooms equipped with Re/Play recorders. Automated streaming will usually be enabled for a teaching block or year and will begin at the timetabled start time of each session.

Unit Directors or Heads of School (or their delegate) should request streaming for a unit. Requests should be submitted to the IT Service desk and contain the unit code, unit name, teaching block, and name of requestor. Alternatively, Heads of School (or their delegate) can request streaming for multiple units by submitting a spreadsheet with the above information to the IT Service desk. Where schools make requests on behalf of Unit Directors, they should ensure that teaching staff know that their teaching will be streamed.

The request should be made at least 48 hours prior to the session, in order for the link to the stream to be available to students in Blackboard.

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

Re/Play – getting ready for the start of term

Over the next couple of weeks, the Digital Education Office are finalising preparations for the Re/Play service for the coming academic year.

  • During the week commencing 13 September, the Digital Education Office will be updating all Blackboard courses to ensure the correct tools are available to teaching staff, and links for students in the left-hand menu for automated room recordings are added.
  • On 18 September, Mediasite will be moving our service to a new data centre to provide an increase in service reliability and to support our live streaming provision; this work will take place between 12am and 4am. We do not envisage their being any outage during this period, but it should be considered an ‘at risk’ time.
  • From 19 September, staff will see two small changes to the My Re/Play Tab in Blackboard: the search bar in the top right of the frame will now be larger, and the “Add Presentation” button will move to the left-hand side. See the new layout (video)
  • Also from the 19 September, the student view of recordings from teaching spaces will change to be a more user-friendly interface with a ’tiled’ view.

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

Re/Play corrective work, Wednesday 8th September

On Wednesday 8th September at 15.30, the Digital Education Office will be making a change to the Re/Play service to allow for presentations to be added via the text box editor in Blackboard. This piece of work is minor, and there should be no noticeable impact during the work, but please note that the service will be at risk between 15.30 and 16.30 while we make this update.

This will not affect recordings in rooms, but there may be a very short break in service at the start of this time.

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