Students and instructors have a few options for how to record videos for their courses. Those options are below, but first let’s cover a few terms to get oriented to our media system.

What are Kaltura and My Media?

Kaltura is the UW-System approved video management system that is integrated into Canvas. Kaltura offers several recording tools and allows you to embed videos in your Canvas courses. When working in your courses, you might not see the word “Kaltura” unless you use Kaltura Capture (Option 1). However, “Kaltura” will be mentioned below, and it might come up in conversations with UW staff members who work on online courses.

A term you are more likely to see is My Media. My Media is a private video repository area in Canvas where all users can upload and manage videos. My Media is part of Kaltura. When you record a video using Kaltura tools, such as Kaltura Capture or Webcam Recorder, your videos will appear in My Media. You can also upload videos from third party tools to My Media.

Once a video is in My Media, you can:

Embed that video into any of your courses
Share a link to the video outside of Canvas
Make minor edits, such as clipping a portion of your video
Download the video to your device for later
Caption your video

To access My Media, go to Account > My Media.

Click on your profile picture, then on My Media.

A note on captioning

Instructors must caption all of their videos, and those captions must be accurate, in order to meet accessibility standards. The options below include directions for including captions in the videos shared on Canvas.

Students may choose whether they want to include captions. However, we strongly recommend it. Some classmates may have hearing impairments or may not be in an environment in which they can turn their sound on. Captions allow them to still understand your video. It takes very little time to add automatic captions to videos, but the benefits are great.

Option 1: Record in Kaltura Capture

This is the RECOMMENDED option for recording your video because it is a one-stop, versatile solution. It allows you to record your presentation and upload it to Kaltura. The video will be saved in My Media, which means it can easily be embedded in your course and/or retrieved outside of your Canvas course.

Follow these directions for installing, recording, and sharing Kaltura Capture videos.

Option 2: Record Via Third Party Tool

You can record your presentation through PowerPoint, Screencast-o-matic, or some other video recording tool. You must then upload the resulting mp4 it to My Media to share it via a link or by embedding it in a Canvas course.

Record your video with your third-party tool of choice, then download the mp4 file.
Upload the video file to My Media
Add and edit the captions for accuracy

Option 3: Embed via YouTube

Some users are more experienced recording videos to YouTube. You can embed these videos into Canvas using the embed code from YouTube. Remember to turn on captioning in YouTube.

Follow these directions for embedding via YouTube.

Option 4: Record via Canvas’s Rich Content Editor

We don’t recommend this method because you will not be able to caption the video.

Follow these directions for recording via Canvas’s rich content editor.

Video Requirements and Tips

Keep your videos short and sweet.
Pay attention to lighting, background noise, speaking volume, and other distractions.
Speak clearly and well-paced.
Rehearse what you are going to say before recording.
Like many things in life, this may take a few attempts!

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Katie Venit

I received my B.A. in English with a minor in Journalism from Wake Forest University and an M.A. in Religious Studies from Indiana University Bloomington. I see the role of an instructional designer as one that removes barriers to learning online content. Those barriers might be ones of accessibility, clarity, motivation, or something else that we discover as the online education continues to be refined. My job is to collaborate with instructors to make their content shine.