In March, we rolled out a new Media Management interface for Administrators, the first phase of our journey that re-designs the video management experience in Studio. The plan follows as:
|
Phase |
Value |
Release Date |
Supported Users |
|
1 |
Provide Administrators with a new interface to search for courses, users and media across the entire account |
2024-03-11 |
LMS Admins |
|
2 |
Introduce quick and easy access to teachers’ and students’ Studio libraries |
2024-08-07 |
LMS Admins |
|
3 |
Enable sub-account Administrators to manage their sub-account’s media |
2024-08-07 |
Sub-Account Admins |
|
4 |
Modernize Studio Library for everyone |
2024 Q4 |
Admins, Teachers, Students |
|
5 |
Add common video management capabilities: recycle bin, favorite media or retaining content etc |
2024 Q4 |
Admins, Teachers, Students |
We have just rolled out the next phase: quickly accessing and managing other users’ video libraries. Let me walk you through the updates and how it will save you significant time and effort when managing other video libraries. In addition to that, sub-account Admin access also rolled out, I will cover what it means for you if you are a sub-account Admin in a separate blog post.
The option to access others’ Libraries is accessible under the Users tab in the new Admin Media Management interface. Search for the first user that comes to your mind and click on either the name or the View Library in the menu. It’s going to open a new browser tab, let's dive into it.
The New Studio Library - Manage Others’ Libraries Without Masquerading!
The Library - aka the landing page of Studio - has been more or less the same for several years. We kept it simple and easy to use, but we frequently ran into design concerns when we chatted about common video management needs such as pinning videos, restoring deleted content or drag’n’drop media to collections.
We needed an overhaul to make sure that adding these new capabilities won’t transform it into something unnecessarily complicated in the future, but we also wanted to keep the simplicity of the previous layout. You might already notice some major changes, so let’s take a closer look at them!
- The goal for Admins is that they no longer need to masquerade as a user in Canvas, they can directly manage others’ Libraries without leaving Studio, saving TONS of clicks in this process.
- This view is only accessible for root Admins who want quick access to others’ video libraries; however, the My Library will also be replaced by this view later this year. In the following months, we will collect feedback on the new layout, incorporate the most valuable ones and then release this for everyone.
- Collections are now moved and separated to the left, similarly to a folder structure in most file/video management applications. This way you can access and manage own and shared content from the same place, and it will provide a streamlined way to manage pinned and deleted videos later this year. Additionally, the separated collection/video layout will prepare us to implement drag’n’drop and introduce sub-collections later down the road!
- Bulk actions are introduced, you will be able to bulk move, tag and delete media.
- Besides the current Grid View of the Library, we introduced a List View for a more compact experience if that is preferred. On Aug 7, only the List View will be available, the Grid View will come in the upcoming weeks latest in September.
- Uploading or creating content on behalf of the user is fully supported, the owner of the video will be the person whose Library is being accessed. However, manipulating content such as editing videos, adding quizzes or annotations are not yet available.
- The user’s Library opens in a new browser tab that will support you to quickly manage multiple Libraries at once if it’s necessary. This was an intentional design decision, so you don’t have to always go back to the Media Management interface, and any search or filter you may apply will remain active.
Inactive users
Going back to the Media Management interface, we also added a new option to filter for Inactive users. This is going to help you identify those users who have not logged in to their account in a year, or they have never used Studio (not even watched a Studio video in any Canvas course). While this will help you find content from inactive users and manage storage, it will introduce substantial improvement into our next topic - Studio Analytics.
Roadmap update
The outcome that supports Studio Administrators to gain a clearer understanding of faculty's video content usage is now moved to the first quarter of 2025 from this year. That will make Studio Analytics more accurate, and change it to show content from only active users. Together with the new Admin Media Management interface and the upcoming access to users’ Studio Libraries, it will be a powerful tool to get an understanding on the active Studio users and how much total storage inactive ones make up.
That’s only half of our updates for the beginning of back to school and I can’t wait to share with you all the updates on supporting sub-accounts in Studio. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions!
Best,
Akos
