First and foremost, I’m truly grateful to have met so many of you at my first InstructureCon. It was an incredible experience! I loved all the chats, from hack night to hallway conversations, and came back with a long list of ideas I’m still sorting through... Now, let’s dive into something a bit stressful, but also super exciting!
As educators fill Canvas Studio with fresh content for the new school year, Admins are busy managing media ownership, access, and faculty questions. Over the last year, we released a new feature in multiple iterations, an Admin Media Management interface that is perfectly built to meet this moment. As a new addition, we released video archiving on July 23rd (something you may have also heard about at InstructureCon). Just one week in, over a thousand educators have already started cleaning up their libraries. Together, these tools give Admins the visibility and control they need to manage the back-to-school media surge. Now, let’s see how these things will get a whole lot smoother this year.
Tip 1: Manage Your Storage Efficiently
Storage management used to be a challenging task. It required reaching out to instructors creating the most media and asking them to clean up their libraries or masquerading as the user to manage the media directly. Additionally, this did not help when students started to upload large videos unrelated to courses so those easily fell through the cracks. Large content was not easy to find and relied on unnecessary communication. The Media Management interface accommodates Admins with several ways to approach such challenges.
- Pinpoint oversized media: In the Media tab, sort by the Size column to quickly identify large video files.
- Filter out outdated content: Apply filters based on upload or last-viewed dates to locate videos that are no longer actively used in instruction–ideal candidates for archiving or deletion.
- Understand media footprint: Use the Media Details tray to see which courses a video is embedded in and who has access, helping you assess whether it’s still relevant or just taking up space.
- Spot your top storage consumers: In the Users tab, identify which instructors or students are using the most storage. This helps prioritize outreach and ensures equitable resource usage across your institution.
- (NEW) Archive and clean up strategically: The Archive tab lets you keep unused videos in a space where they can be permanently deleted later. With clear metadata such as their upload date and last student view, you can make informed decisions about what stays and what goes.
Tip 2: Locate Outdated, Non-Accessible Content and Inactive Users
Over time, any institution’s media library can become cluttered with outdated course content, inaccessible media, and user accounts that are no longer active. Ensuring that instructional videos remain current and accessible is an ongoing challenge for Administrators. Let’s see how the ‘birds-eye view’ provides the controls you need.
- Media tied to legacy courses: In the Courses tab, filter for courses concluded several terms ago to easily surface and review content that may no longer be relevant to the upcoming semester.
- Content owned by inactive users: Use the Users tab to filter for inactive accounts such as former faculty or students and directly access their media libraries in a new browser tab.
- Non-compliant media or outdated assets: In the Media tab, apply filters to locate videos without captions, or content labeled with tags tied to past academic years or outdated topics. This helps prioritize content review for accessibility or content retirement to clean up libraries.
Tip 3: Provide Quick and Proactive Support
The back-to-school period often unleashes a ton of support inquiries from faculty who “can’t find a video” or “don’t have access to something”. Direct links between the Media Management interface, personal video libraries and course media help you more quickly and efficiently provide support.
- Act on behalf of faculty: Find the person reaching out in the Users tab and click on the name to view their video library to easily act on behalf of them
- Confirm access and visibility: In the Media tab, use the Media tray to learn crucial information and answer who has access to that content, which courses leverage it and what does the owner’s library looks like
- Use filters to find anything: Was it an at least 30-minutes long video that was shared with students in the past term with “Calculus” in the video description and 3 true-or-false questions in it? Good news, the filters and search work seamlessly together so you have a powerhouse to locate everything with ease. Learn more about the filters in this guide.
Tip +1: Track Active Users in Studio Analytics
Just in case you missed our July 2nd release, you can now track exactly how many of your faculty, students and admins use Studio content starting from a given date, such as the new semester. This allows you to filter out inactive users, which you can also search for individually in the Media Management interface.
Do not hesitate to comment if you have any questions about the tips, tell us your experience with the solution, or share ideas on how we can make Media Management for you even better.
Best,
Akos
