Minimum Video Upload Bandwidth

[themidiman]

Asking on behalf of an instructor who teaches with the assumption that students have adequate bandwidth to participate in their online sign language course...

The instructor relies on the RCE video upload capability quite heavily for assessment in quizzes, and always has at least one or two students say they cannot get it to work. Since they are mainly assessments, the students don't typically know the prompts they are supposed to record ahead of time, and uploading files is out of the question. They need to record on demand when prompted.

I know the answer is the higher the better, but what bandwidth number for upload speed would you say the instructor needs to tell their students when they are starting the course to expect to have on hand in order to get an adequate learning experience when recording on demand?

[gnoack · Accepted solution]

You might find this info helpful.

What Is a Good Download Speed and Upload Speed? (lifewire.com)

The best I can find from Canvas is this information:

"You can use the Rich Content Editor to record video and audio media. You can record media for any length of time, but shorter media recordings are recommended. If your media is longer than 15 minutes, you may want to consider recording and uploading using an external provider. Longer media recordings require more time to render and may be interrupted without a stable internet connection."

How do I record media using the Rich Content Edito... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

When students say they "Cannot get it to work", do they necessary mean it's an upload issue?  Could they have issues with their browser accessing their webcam and mic? I would suspect it's more of a technical issue with their system and software than a bandwidth issue. If the professor is asking for very long videos, it might be best to break up the questions into shorter videos. 

Does this happen throughout the semester or just the first couple of exams?  I would strongly encourage the professor to require a practice exam that asks the students to test their systems before an actual exam. I would also give very specific tech requirements to the students such as what browsers to use, whether a smartphone or tablet is acceptable, and perhaps not using a hotspot from their phone.  And anything else you think might cause an issue.  

[themidiman]

Thanks for the resources!