There are two recommended ways of adding Re/Play videos to your Blackboard course. Both ensure that the videos are only made available to users within the relevant Blackboard unit spaces. Which you choose will depend on how you want the video to appear to students:

1. Add it as a standalone item. This shows the video as an individual Blackboard item in a small player.
2. Insert a link and thumbnail image. This allows additional text to be added around the video to contextualise it. The student clicks on the link to open the video.

A third option – embedding a video player within a Blackboard item – is available, but not recommended, as it means the video would be viewable by anyone within or outside the University if shared.

Instructions, including video guides, for all these methods can be found at: Uploading, enhancing and adding videos to your course (bris.ac.uk). 

If you wish to use the third option, embedding a video within a Blackboard item, the ‘Who Can View’ permission for the video in ‘My Re/Play’ must be set to ‘Everyone’. This means that the video can be shared with anyone within or beyond the University who has access to the link. To set this permission:

1. Log on to Blackboard
2. Select the ‘My Re/Play’ tab at the top
3. Locate the presentation you wish to set permissions on
4. Click on the padlock symbol to unlock it
5. Click on the video
6. On the right-hand side, in the ‘Who can view’ section, adjust the slider to ‘Everyone’

If you embed a video in this way but don’t set the permission to ‘Everyone’, then students will be asked to authenticate by Mediasite (as shown in the screenshot below), but will still not be able to access the video.

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

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.

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.

We are currently investigating an issue with our Re/Play hardware recorders which are showing as offline. We have raised this with the supplier and are working with IT Services to assess the impact.

We will update the blog as soon as we have more information.

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

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.

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.

The Digital Education Office is pleased to confirm that the new Re/Play recording tool is now available in the Microsoft App Store and the Apple App Store. This replaces the Desktop Recorder, which will be out of support later in the year. To install the new tool:

1. Type “Microsoft store” in the search bar at the bottom left of the screen (Mac users can install from the Apple App Store and jump to step 5)
2. When this appears, click to open it
3. Select the ‘University of Bristol’ from the top tabs
4. Select ‘Mediasite Mosaic’ and click ‘Install’
5. Click this Mosaic registration link and authenticate with your University login
6. Click the ‘Register’ button.

Now, when you run Mosaic, you should see your user code at the top right of the window. Consult the Mosaic user guide to learn how to use it.

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

Problems with your installation?

Sometimes a newly installed Mosaic will have all the menus in far-East characters (Japanese). This can be fixed by installing the US Language Pack in Windows:

From Windows Settings->Time & Language->Language, add the English (United States) language pack and set it as the second language in the list of installed languages.

Instructions here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/language-packs-for-windows-a5094319-a92d-18de-5b53-1cfc697cfca8

As part of essential work to ensure the security of our systems, the authentication for Re/Play recordings is changing. This security update will break links to videos embedded using the Re/Play embed code in Blackboard courses. 

For content added before 19 July 

The DEO and IT Services are undertaking remedial action to change existing embedded Re/Play videos into links to ensure that students retain access. This work will take place on 19 July. 

For content added after 19 July 

See options for adding videos to your course. 

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