Blackboard courses have a file storage limit, to help you keep within that limit there are restrictions on uploading files of a particular files size or file type, see our guide Blackboard File size limits.
Video files should be stored in YuJa, this offers:
- A secure place to keep your videos.
- Uses the ample storage quota in YuJa.
- Automatically generates captions for your videos.
- Can be inserted into your Blackboard course either directly into a folder or anywhere where a text editor is use.
How to reuse videos from your original course to your Ultra course:
- Step 1: Download the video from your original course
- Step 2: Upload your video to YuJa
- Step 3: Insert your video to your Blackboard course
Resources such as Word documents or PDFs should not be uploaded to YuJa – there is a risk that these files may be auto-deleted if they’re stored in YuJa. Students should continue to access non-video learning resources from Blackboard.
Step 1: Download the video from your original course
In your Blackboard original course go to the Course Management area in the left-hand side menu and open the Files menu. Click on the module code under files.
The will open the Course Content for your module. All the files uploaded onto the course will appear here.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Show All”
- Sort the files by “file type” ((a) on the image) to locate the videos.
- Select the videos you wish to download ((b) on the image).
- Select Download Package – this will create a zip file of all the selected files and download it.
When the course content list appears scroll to the bottom of the page and click “show all”.
Once you have downloaded the videos you are ready to upload them to YuJa.
Step 2: Upload your video to YuJa
See YuJa’s help article for a list of supported file types which can be uploaded to YuJa (opens in a new window). Most video file types are supported. However, if you do have a video file in a non-supported format, you can use Handbrake or VLC Player (both available via Apps Anywhere) to convert it.
Log in to YuJa and assign Schema Tags
- Log in to YuJa with your University of Reading credentials (logging in via Blackboard is recommended).
- Choose Upload from the top options
- Before transferring your video, you must assign it a ‘Schema Tag’. This ensures that the content is allocated the correct retention period in YuJa. Choose Add Schema Tags
- Choosing the correct tag from the drop-down list:
- If your videos has no students present (e.g. a screencast), choose Personal capture.
- If your video is a recording of a student assessment (e.g. recording made of an in-class assessed presentation), choose Assessment.
- If your video is a recording of a teaching session with students present (e.g. a Teams or Collaborate session), select Uncategorised.
- When you have chosen the correct tag, click Save.
Browse for your video and upload
- Choose Browse to choose the video from your device. You can also drag and drop multiple files from your device into the Add Media window:
- Your video will begin to upload and process immediately, and progress is shown bottom right of the screen:
- When the file has finished uploading, the video will begin processing in YuJa – this may take some while to complete.
Important: Do not close the YuJa window while the video is uploading, however, you can close YuJa while the video is still processing.
Step 3: Insert video on to your Blackboard course
- Go to your Blackboard course, you have two options:
For either option you will need to access the LTI Insert Video (YuJa) from the content market.
Always check copyright permissions before uploading commercially published or other third-party content to university systems; you can get advice from IMPS or the Library.
Insert the video into the course content
- Click on the Learning Materials module to expand it.
- Click on the weekly content folder where the video will be.
- Hover where you wish to place the video and click on the purple plus icon which appears.
- Choose Content Market.
- Insert Video (YuJa):
- The search bar and filter funnel gives various search options to help you find your video. You’ll be able to insert YuJa videos which you own, any videos which have been shared with you, as well videos from any YuJa channel where you are an instructor.
For more-detailed help on using the search and filter features, see our guide YuJa – Search your videos with the filter search:
Insert the video in to an Ultra Document
Adding screencasts or other personal capture videos to an Ultra Document is ideal when you’d like students to see a video in the context of other related content. For example, a video you’d like students to watch before a lecture, together with the handouts and lecture slides for context. A video added to an Ultra Document appears as an embedded object:
- In your Ultra Document, click the purple plus icon at the point at which you’d like to insert the video.
- Choose Add Content.
- Click the black plus icon on the toolbar.
- Choose Content Market.
- Click on the Insert video (YuJa) tile and select the video(s) to insert.
