Canvas media upload ads?

[AdrGau]

hi all! I'm an admin for a couple Canvas instances - one is K12 and one is a non-profit for our prof. dev. courses.

From the K12 we got notified by the CSM of this: 

"First, the update was pushed out last Friday, October 3rd. For any videos embedded in Canvas LMS directly into the Rich Content Editor or via the YouTube LTI, your users should begin seeing Ads at this time."

On the non-profit side (which is a wicked small 200'ish user instance, we don't even really have a good CSM support channel anymore) --- we didn't get any such message. I track the Release/Deploy notes and only saw (in Sept) the YouTube ads coming in. The message above implies any multimedia uploaded to course and embedded in a page/module will show ads.

^^^ That's new to us. I'm trying to suss it out. Is that true? I'm talking about mp4 files uploaded to course, created by us and embedded in a page.

I tried talking to a Tier 1 on the phone, and they did not understand what I was asking and kept talking about YouTube and Spotify. I gave up. 

Anyone have any insight?

Thanks!
Adrienne

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @AdrGau,

I believe all of the recent communications about ads have been targeted around Youtube content, but perhaps the k12 CSM didn't include that detail for some reason.  As far as I know myself as a Canvas admin in higher-ed, you shouldn't ever see any ads for MP4 files you have directly uploaded to Canvas/Canvas Studio.  If you're putting your MP4 files into another service like Vimeo or others Instructure can't control what those providers show and you could potentially see ads from those.  The exception to that rule is if you have Canvas Studio in addition to Canvas LMS,  the new Youtube for Education player experience there will not have ads.  You can see the YouTube Player for Education FAQs - Instructure Community - 651366 document for more info.

I hope this info helps!

-Chris

[AdrGau]

Thanks Chris - I'm thinking the same as you (and came from higher ed). It doesn't make sense to me that if we upload the mp4, that then the Canvas media player will put ads onto it. However, Instructure is doing a mighty push for using Studio (which, we will not subscribe to). We are not going to use something like Vimeo or YouTube do some other limitations. I can understand hosting/streaming services like those might have ads that will show.

I think it's the wording that is confusing. The RCE technically embeds a video file that's sitting in files in a iframe. It doesn't say anything about other streaming services, etc. It's just a vague sentence in my view 👀 and he implied  a new update (previous email line below, which I didn't include in my post).

"I hope you're doing well! Since our previous messages about the Youtube Ads Update, there is some new information that I want to share with everyone. For any videos embedded in Canvas LMS directly into the Rich Content Editor or via the YouTube LTI, your users should begin seeing Ads at this time."

Is there any additional insight? 
Adrienne

(I see a solution was accepted, but I think it's still a question.)

[chriscas]

Hi @AdrGau,

I think it may be coming down to how you interpret the sentences...  "For any videos embedded in Canvas LMS directly into the Rich Content Editor or via the YouTube LTI, your users should begin seeing Ads at this time," sounds by itself like it may apply to any video.  However, the prior sentence, "I hope you're doing well! Since our previous messages about the Youtube Ads Update, there is some new information that I want to share with everyone," puts that in context of YouTube ads.

What Instructure is saying is that YouTube videos embedded directly in the RCE or via the YouTube LTI will potentially start to show ads at the end of the month.  Those who have Canvas Studeio can embed YouTube videos through that system, which will prevent ads from being shown.  I am 99.9% sure no other video content is being affected by this change.

-Chris

[AdrGau]

I agree, and that's first how I read it, but then questioned it because having the YT ads is not new information from his previous message and Deploy notes. I can see how some might think that grabbing YT embed code and using that (instead of the LTI app) can be seen as something different. But then questioned it bc having ads is wholly unprofessional in the context of the non-profit instance so I just need to be sure that it does not include uploaded mp4's into a Canvas course.

😆 Right now I'll hold the belief it's just YT, but won't fully buy into that deep down in my soul until we don't see ads happening in the next month or so.

Thanks for the thoughts on the interpretation! (I really do believe it, truly...b/c for sure Canvas isn't trying to push everyone to Studio...)