This is an update of the issue from 29.11.22
The issue identified yesterday which resulted in a time-out error when accessing Re/Play collections is now resolved. Our supplier confirmed that they had fixed the issue, and currently the system is working as expected.
We will continue to closely monitor the service.
This issue is now resolved. See the updated blog post for the latest information.
We are aware of reports of a timeout error message when trying to access Re/Play from a Blackboard course menu link (eg to the unit collection of recordings). The supplier has identified the issue is related to search based functions, and is working to resolve it as soon as possible. Recordings added or shared by other methods (eg added via the build content tools in Blackboard) are currently unaffected.
We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
This post summarises the current status of the Re/Play service giving details of what is working, what has been fixed and any open issues.
Open issues are listed below and provide details of any workarounds that can be used and when a fix will be applied.
Background on this week’s incident and current status
A problem with access to Re/Play recordings was identified around midday on Monday 7 February. The issue involved students losing access to Re/Play materials accessed via the left-hand menu in Blackboard. This was resolved on the morning of Tuesday 8 February and has been working without incident since that time.
Please note the following features of Re/Play are currently working normally and being used intensively:
Outstanding issue: Now Resolved – see the update on 11 February
Since 10.30 am on Tuesday 8th February materials uploaded to Blackboard using “Build Content” have not been usable. There are five common ways materials from Re/Play are added into Blackboard. ‘Build Content’ is one of the less frequently used methods.
*Update*: work to resolve this problem was completed on Friday 11 February.
Workaround: DEO has posted instructions on how to make materials available to students who need them urgently.
Other issues currently identified
From Monday 31st January staff may have been unable to access some TB1 21/22 materials housed in Re/Play. No content has been lost or deleted and student access is unaffected.
Work to resolve this problem is planned for the week commencing 14 February 2022.
Workaround: DEO can restore access to materials if they are needed urgently.
There have been a small number of reports of issues when re-using content from previous years courses.
Work to resolve this issue is substantially complete. A final review and institutional fix will be applied in week commencing 21 February 2022. We will also update guidance for staff on how to re-use materials.
Workaround: Simple instructions can been used by DEO and school staff to resolve this issue.
In the summer of 2021, there was a change to the way University systems authenticate users online. Following this change, videos embedded in Blackboard using an iframe need to be set to ‘Everyone can view’ in the Mediasite permissions in order to play.
Resolution: this was resolved in archived courses and for existing materials in 2021/22 Blackboard courses by DEO and IT Services work over the summer to replace embedded content.
For content added this year, updating permissions is a simple step which can be done by school staff. DEO have now resolved the issue for all new 21/22 content in Blackboard and will be running weekly reports to check that permission settings have not been changed.
Current situation and support
Despite the issues listed above, our use of Re/Play continues to be very strong; for example, between 20 September and 22 November 2021, almost 253,000 hours of materials were watched by our students. This data underlines the potential impact of issues and the criticality of the Re/Play service, and we sincerely apologise for any stress and disruption to colleagues and our students.
As you might expect, the DEO Helpdesk is very busy at the moment. To ensure we maintain good response times, the number of staff responding to inquiries to digital-education@bristol.ac.uk has been significantly increased while we work through the backlog of inquiries.
With recent issues in Re/Play, we have had questions about sharing Re/Play videos using a direct link, and so thought it would be useful to run through the steps you need to take in order to do this.
When students follow this link, they will need to select the ‘authenticate’ option when prompted. After authenticating, they should be able to view the video in a new browser window. This link will work for anyone authenticated via the University of Bristol’s Single Sign On.
If you are experiencing problems accessing your recordings via My Re/Play and need to share them urgently, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk so that we can assist further.
This post is a further update to the issue first identified on 07 February, where the Re/Play link in the Blackboard left-hand menu was displaying an error message, and students could not access materials.
As reported earlier today, all students should now be able to access Re/Play materials shared via left-hand menu links in Blackboard. Automated recordings of teaching have not been affected by the technical bug and will still be available after 48 hours or when published by the academic staff member.
However, we are still applying fixes to some pre-existing problems with Re/Play which might affect the ability of some students to view some videos in Blackboard.
We have Blackboard and Sonic Foundry engineers working to resolve these issues and plan to apply another fix tomorrow. If your students are being affected and you urgently need them to be able to access a recording, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk so that we can assist.
This is an update to the issue reported on 07 February, where access to Re/Play from the Blackboard menu was not working.
As of 11.00am on 08 February, we believe that access has now been restored, and students should be able to view recordings as normal via the Re/Play menu link in Blackboard courses. We are now in the process of thoroughly testing this fix, so please let us know if students are still experiencing issues viewing recordings via the Re/Play course link.
If you have questions please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk
Since August 2021, the recommended ways to embed Re/Play videos in Blackboard courses changed to reflect security updates in the University systems. Following this change, any Re/Play video which is embedded using an iframe code must have the permissions set to ‘Everyone’ for students to be able to view this content.
The recent issue with Re/Play permissions removed the ‘Everyone’ permissions for iframe video content from the 2021/22 academic year, resulting in students being unable to play embedded video between Friday 28th January and Wednesday 2nd February 2022. Students would still have been able to access any Re/Play content associated with their units via the Re/Play menu item, which links directly to the unit catalogue.
The Digital Education Office have restored these videos to a functional state by resetting the permissions to ‘Everyone’. If prior to this issue there had been embedded video without this universal setting, it would not have been viewable to students. However, the ‘Everyone’ setting means that the content would be viewable by anyone within or outside the University if a link was shared. If you have embedded video content which should not be set to ‘Everyone’, you will need to change the permission level via My Re/Play.
As this content would not have previously been viewable to students, we recommend that you re-add the content using one of the methods, as outlined in this guide ‘Uploading, enhancing and adding videos to your course’.
We apologise again for any inconvenience.