From time to time you may wish to add a video file or audio file for your students to view as part of your teaching.
From July 2024 – audio and media files are now blocked from being simply uploading into Blackboard.
Blackboard is not designed to be a streaming player and therefore gives a negative experience for students as they have to fully download the file in order to play it. It also takes up storage space on the Learn Ultra platform. Therefore a decision was made to set a blanket block on being able to upload audio/video files. This restriction is determined by file type and below is list of file types being blocked:
.webm,.mkv,.flv,.vob,.ogv,.ogg,.drc,.gif,.gifv,.mng,.avi,.MTS,.M2TS,.TS,.mov,.qt,.wmv,.yuv,.rm,.rmvb,.viv,.asf,.amv,.mp4,.m4p,.m4v,.mp2,.mpe,.mpv,.mpg,.mpeg,.m2v,.svi,.3gp,.3g2,.mxf,.roq,.nsv,.f4v,.f4p,.f4a,.f4b for video
.aa,.aac,.aax,.act,.aiff,.alac,.amr,.ape,.au,.awb,.dss,.dvf,.flac,.gsm,.iklax,.ivs,.m4a,.m4b,.mmf,.movpkg,.mp3,.mpc,.msv,.nmf,.mogg,.opus,.ra,.raw,.rf64,.sln,.tta,.voc,.vox,.wav,.wma,.wv,.web,.8svx,.cda for audio
Therefore to add a video to your Blackboard course you must now utilise the Panopto/Encore tool to upload the video/audio file and then you can embed the Panopto/Encore player as a content item in order to give a seamless process for student to view/listen to media files.
This also applies if you set up a video/audio assessment – your students should never directly upload media files into a submission point – you should set up and utilise the Panopto/Encore assignment workflow.
For Accessibility reasons and legal compliance – Panopto/Encore allows closed captions – so it is the better option for all.
If you have already uploaded media files into Blackboard then we would urge you to create a Panopto/Encore version and delete the original file from the content system. CIS may, from time to time, request teaching staff to move any old media files to Panopto/Encore to free up storage space..
For more information about uploading media files and for media assessments – please follow the guidance on the Panopto/Encore help guide pages.