HOW TO: Use Mediasite in noncredit courses

Kansas State University faculty and staff who work with course materials in Canvas may be accustomed to using the My Mediasite portal and its associated tools directly inside Canvas. While such integration does not exist in the Canvas instance used for hosting noncredit courses, which uses its own separate Canvas instance, it is still possible to use K-State's Mediasite platform to support videos and rich media presentations in noncredit course materials. Below is a summary of how to perform Mediasite-related operations in noncredit courses that are different from using Mediasite in the for-credit instance of Canvas.

Video: Using Mediasite in noncredit courses (8:41)

Accessing the MyMediasite portal

The My Mediasite portal, used for creating and managing Mediasite presentations, is not accessible to instructors through the navigation menu in noncredit courses. To access the My Mediasite portal directly within your web browser, use the URL below:

https://mediasite.k-state.edu/mediasite/My Mediasite

If prompted, log in with your K-State eID and password. Once inside the My Mediasite portal, you can create new Mediasite presentations or edit, delete and otherwise manage existing presentations in the same manner as you would if you were accessing the My Mediasite portal through Canvas. Because the university uses the same Mediasite servers for both credit and noncredit courses, all of your Mediasite content is available for use in either type of course, provided the presentation security settings are set properly (see below).

If you are new to Mediasite, please see the additional how-to articles and tutorial videos available on this website, including the My Mediasite navigation overview.

Video: My Mediasite navigation overview (3:14)

Allowing noncredit students to watch your Mediasite presentation

Video: Allow Mediasite presentations to be viewed without requiring a K-State eID (0:59)

By default, the K-State Mediasite system requires students to be logged into Canvas with their K-State eID and password. Since students taking noncredit courses may not necessarily have a K-State eID, and since they do not authenticate to the noncredit instance of Canvas using K-State eID credentials, the security settings of any presentation you use in your noncredit course need to be modified so authentication with a K-State eID and password is not required.

From the list of presentations in your My Mediasite portal, select the title of the presentation you wish to make viewable to everyone. A summary of the presentation will appear.
From the Presentation Summary, locate the Who Can View? slider toward the bottom of the right column.
Move the slider to the position labeled Everyone.

Once the slider is set to Everyone, individuals with whom you share the Mediasite presentation will not be required to provide an eID or password to watch it.

Please Note: In addition to modifying the "Who Can View?" settings above, you should verify the presentation's visibility is set to Viewable so others may watch the presentation. A presentation set to Private visibility will only be viewable to the presentation's owner; others will receive an error saying the presentation is unavailable.

Adding Mediasite content to a noncredit course in Canvas

Unlike for-credit courses, the instance of Canvas used in noncredit program offerings does not feature built-in functions like adding Mediasite presentations using buttons within the Rich Content Editor. However, instructors can still place Mediasite content into a course hosted in the noncredit instance of Canvas via a copy/paste operation using Mediasite's Share tab.

In your noncredit Canvas course, navigate to the module where you want to place your Mediasite content, for example, "Module 1."
In Module 1, select the + button adjacent to the module.
Choose Page, and then select [Create Page].
Provide a name for the page next to Page Name.
Select Add Item.
Select the name of the newly created content page to view it, and then select Edit in the top-right corner.
In a separate web browser tab or window, navigate to your My Mediasite portal (see above) and select the name of the presentation you wish to add to your course content page. A summary of the presentation will appear.
Select Share Presentation.
Select the Embed tab and choose the desired Embed Size for your video, like "Medium - 900 x 600."
Copy the text from the Embed Code section. Be certain to copy all of the text, as sometimes the browser may require you to scroll to see the rest of the embed code; the embed code should begin with "<iframe>" and end with "</iframe>".
With the embed code copied into your computer's clipboard (see previous step), return to the Rich Content Editor in your Canvas course and select the "HTML Editor" option near the bottom-right corner.
Paste the embed code into the content area.
Select Save to commit your edits and preview the page with the embedded Mediasite presentation.

Remember to publish your new page as well as your module in Canvas so noncredit students will be able to view them. Additionally, remember to set your Mediasite presentation status to Viewable - if the presentation you just added to your Canvas page is set to Private, you will be able to view it, but your students will receive an error.

Video: How to make your Mediasite recording viewable (1:29)