Category Archives: Replay

Re/Play updates and improvements

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Re/PlayAs part of the ongoing work reviewing and improving the Re/Play service, the DEO has upgraded Re/Play over the summer to the newer, more robust LTI 1.3 version. The core service of automatic lecture capture will still work in the same way and there are many improvements, but there are some changes that may affect existing videos and your future work. 

The key changes are: 

  • Streamlined and improved workflows to add Re/Play content directly within Blackboard: You should ensure you are familiar with these workflows for adding content to Blackboard. 
  • Improved integration of permissions using Blackboard roles: Provided you follow the revised workflows, this will ensure your students get the best experience as it uses their Blackboard roles to grant the correct access to Re/Play content. In addition, it enables all instructors on a course to find and edit a unit’s recordings. 
  • Improved search functionality, allowing for filtering of search results: You should familiarise yourself with these changed filters as you may need to adjust them to find what you are looking for. 
  • Older content may need review: 
    • Make sure any older content added to Blackboard is working as expected, and re-add anything that isn’t playing for you. This is relevant for rolled over content which was added prior to June 2022.  
    • If you used the now out-of-support ‘iframe embed’ workflow (adding recordings using the html editor), replace those with the new ‘embedded player’ option wherever possible. 

We have updated our Re/Play guidance – Re/Play videos: upload, enhance, share – to include more details on all of the above.

We recommend you bookmark this link to refer to as you get used to the changes. 

In addition, we have responded to the feedback and consultations we have had with staff and students in the Digital Learning Environment review focus on Re/Play and have made some further improvements to the lecture capture experience.   

  • Lectures will now be recorded by default in the higher framerate, meaning that they will capture handwriting or animations smoothly without the need to request a ‘screencast’ in advance 
  • Recordings will be made available to students after 24 rather than 48 hours 

Where to get more help and training 

You can find all of the guidance for getting the best from Re/Play via the DEO’s Re/Play webpages. Re/Play | Digital Education Office | University of Bristol  

There are also a number of Re/Play related workshops and training sessions planned for the start of term. 

DEO have new Re/Play training which you can find and book via Develop. https://develop.bristol.ac.uk/ilp/pages/description.jsf?menuId=1108#/users/@self/catalogues/1464674/coursetemplates/3160151/description  

IT Services have user guides and run sessions on the audio visual equipment in rooms. 

  

 

Summer digital education improvements

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Each year, the Digital Education Office delivers a summer plan of work on our digital education environments and systems. This plan includes any significant system changes or software upgrades, but also includes more minor changes to systems and processes, ensuring everything works well for the next academic year.  

We regularly update the Service Improvements Page over the summer, documenting and advertising expected and completed work. If you are interested in keeping up to date, it is worth bookmarking this page. Any major changes will also be announced via other channels, such as this blog. 

This year, many of these improvements have been prompted by outputs from the ongoing Digital Learning Environment (DLE) Review. Staff, students and professional services colleagues have been asked to share their experiences of using the digital education environment, as well as work with us to imagine the teaching and learning of the future. To find out more about the DLE review, please visit the DLE SharePoint page for staff. 

 

Re/Play – caption updates

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Full transcripts of Re/Play presentations are now available for staff to download. These text files can be downloaded by selecting Download to Computer in a presentation when viewing it in My Re/Play. Transcripts can be accessed by either the presentation owner or anyone with editor or moderator rights.  

You may now notice a tag appearing for some presentations, which says ‘edited captions’. A team of Student Caption Editors have been working in the DEO to correct automatic speech recognition errors in some Re/Play presentations.  

If you, or someone else in your school, is editing captions, you can now also add the ‘edited captions’ tag in the Information tab in My Re/Play. These tags will be visible to both students and staff in Re/Play collections, and help students to recognise which captions are likely to be more accurate. Ideally, all captions should be checked for key terminology and usability.  

[Closed] Intermittent issue loading Re/Play videos

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Some people are experiencing intermittent issues when trying to view Re/Play videos, receiving an error message stating “The video could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format cannot be supported.” This has been reported to the supplier of the Re/Play service, who has replicated the issue and is investigating the root cause. They hope to have resolved this soon.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

[Closed] Persistent Blackboard access disruption

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The Blackboard access issue from yesterday, which was fixed by Blackboard at source, is persisting for some users today – notably, people attempting to access Blackboard on campus. IT Services is investigating why this is the case, supported by Blackboard. In the meantime, you may be able to access Blackboard using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or by using a mobile phone as a hotspot.

If you are still encountering problems on your own device, you can attempt to resolve them by flushing your DNS, using the instructions found on the IT Services status page.

[Resolved] Re/Play edits failing to save

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This update relates to problems with Editing in Re/Play

The issue whereby some edits made in Re/Play returned a ‘fail’ error was acknowledged as a bug by the supplier. A fix for this bug was implemented on the 18th March. DEO testing and monitoring suggests that this fix was successful.

The supplier has notified us that sometimes the fail message was returned in error, when edits had in fact saved successfully. If you received an error message previously, it may be that your edits have already been saved. You should be able to see from the video playback whether your edits have or haven’t saved successfully. Please contact us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk if you are unsure, or need further guidance.

Please note that if you edit the video while the captions are being generated, this can cause the captions to fail. They will then need to be requested again which can be done through the My RePlay area in Blackboard. Captions are automatically generated when the recording is made available to students. It can take up to 24 hours for the captions to generate.

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

[Closed] RePlay Timeout message

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We are aware of reports of a timeout error message when accessing Re/Play from a Blackboard course menu link (eg to the unit collection of recordings) and searching for recordings through My Re/Play. The supplier has been informed and we are awaiting confirmation of the remedial action required. Recordings added or shared by other methods (eg added via the build content tools in Blackboard) and room recordings are currently unaffected.

We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.