Ability to replace the media button in the new RCE with our media platform of choice

[burrielr]

The move to put all LTI plugins into a dropdown is going to severely impact media usage at our institution as presently our faculty and students are accustomed to pressing an existing button on the old RCE when inserting media into their Canvas content. Having to select a dropdown menu to find their media option hidden therein means that most won't find the option at all. To have a different media button in the toolbar (the native Canvas media integration) front and center presents a situation with our users will instinctively press on that button.

Compounding matters is that depending on screen/browser size, the "PLUGIN" button in RCE may not appear, replaced instead with a 3 button "MORE" button, meaning as many as 3 clicks to get to the 3rd party media platform of the school's choice.

Here is the toolbar on wide screens with the browser fully expanded:

Here is the toolbar on narrower screens or with the browser not fully expanded:

Yet another compounding factor is that Canvas uses the terminology "My Media" in the native Canvas media integration, a term already regularly used elsewhere, specifically for schools using the Kaltura LTI plugin.

To present users with two DIFFERENT "My Media" elements, each going to different media repositories would be catastrophic, resulting in endless user support headaches.

We propose that Canvas administrators should be able to choose which media platform we want for that button (be it Kaltura, Panopto, YouTube, or Instructure's Canvas Studio, etc.)

Short of that, alternatives include:

- Ability to remove the native Canvas media button from the new RCE

*AND*

- Ability to select one or two LTI integrations of the administrator's choosing to appear on the new RCE in a position of their choosing rather than in the plugin dropdown

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the Canvas Deploy Notes (2020-08-26)

[stade]

This suggestion is great! Each institutions' Canvas administrators should be able to choose which media platform to display for their instructors!

[bricha44adm]

Hello all.

I am trying to vote in support of this idea but not successful. Is the idea closed for voting?

[jwadec]

I believe you'll need to join the https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/assign2-user-group group first. Try that and then come back to this idea! 

[Stef_retired]

 @bricha44adm ‌, the idea remains open for voting. Please check to see that you (1) are logged in and (2) haven't already upvoted it.

[erinhmcmillan]

Just as an update, the Canvas Release: New Rich Content Editor‌ document clarifies the Media section to note that the My Media link has been renamed to User Media.

Thanks,

Erin

[JACOBSEN_C]

The idea is a request for the ability to replace the media button in the new RCE with our media platform of choice (Studio, Panopto, Kaltura, etc.); to replace the baked in/default Canvas media too with an institution's chosen media hosting platform integration placement to, among other things, ensure media is placed where an auto-captioning feature to the chosen (3rd party - though 'Studio' isn't exactly 3rd party) service is triggered w/o emails, meetings, service request ticketing systems, IT support, etc.

[burrielr]

Thanks Clint, that's right. Renaming "My Media" to "User Media" is a step in the right direction, particularly for institutions that use Kaltura and the term "My Media" is already ubiquitous across the platform, but as it currently stands, presenting the user with the *wrong* media button in the toolbar, regardless of how it's labeled, is not particularly productive. Even giving us the option to add a 2nd media button to the toolbar won't help very much if we can't remove the first media button. The fix to this problem is to provide us with an agnostic media button that loads our media platform of choice.

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Clint,

Some of the comments addressed the need to rename the current link, which we have done, and wanted to point out. The actual request itself is taking more review from our product team.

Thanks,

Erin

[jwadec]

Thanks, Erin. 

It's probably a good idea for the product team to have a discussion with the community about additional LTI placements. I could see several areas in the new RCE which this idea reflects but there are also other areas of the product like Conferences where BigBlueButton is the sole provider unless you manage host Canvas and install the additional modules to get Adobe Connect. Would love to see Web Conferencing tools get a launch from Conferences like Zoom. 

Didn't mean to derail the conversation. Just think that it is a good idea to think about LTI placements in general. 

[burrielr]

I appreciate that the new RCE is a work in progress and new features need to be refined, but I have some notes on this latest change:

Canvas Deploy Notes (2020-02-12)'s Rich Content Editor Upload/Record Media Button and Kaltura LTI se...

In the context of this thread, please note the following update: "When the Kaltura integration is configured to hide the video icon in the New Rich Content Editor, the Upload/Record Media button does not display."

We did some testing which can be reviewing here: https://media.oregonstate.edu/media/t/0_7rp4tus1

As indicated, the upload and recording functionality has been disabled. Which does inch us towards some strategic goals, but I feel there remains a lot of room for improvement.

- Firstly, this is exclusive to Kaltura installations. As a Kaltura school, we are certainly grateful for that. But we've heard from other schools on this forum. Users of other platforms, including Panopto, Canvas Studio, Encho360, MediaSite, etc., deserve a solution as well.

- The icon mouse-over text remains "Upload/Record Media", although this button no longer does either.

- Clicking on the User Media link takes us to media the user has uploaded into the native Canvas system in the past (through Media Responses, Speed Grader, etc.) This is a first. In the past, this media has been hidden and inaccessible to the user, which was likely a severe privacy issue. So... nice!

- The media here carries no (or inaccurate) labels. There are no thumbnails and no means or previewing the media.

- The media here is inconsistent. In the above demo, the first time I clicked the link, I saw 5 entries. The second time I clicked the link, I saw 10 entries. The order of the entries is also inaccurate ("Date Added" is accurate only when I see 5 entries, but not when I see 10 entries).

- This functionality remains un-intuitive to the user, as they will click this most obvious video button and seek a means for uploading/sharing/downloading their media, and they won't find one. Rather than look elsewhere for this functionality, they'll likely abandon the effort in frustration or open a support ticket.

- The "Select App" menu remains a work in progress. Clicking the one place where my mouse turns into a pointer produces no behavior. It "expands" and "collapses" descriptive text (you can see this with the LibApps description), but for apps that have no descriptive text (or short text), nothing happens. Instead, you have to click on the app title, but here your mouse does not turn into a pointer, so once again it's un-intuitive to the user.

I remain convinced that the correct course of action here is to give Canvas administrators the capability of selecting the media platform of their choice when a user clicks on the media button in the new RCE.

Thank you,

Raul Burriel

Oregon State University