Studio Navigation Update & Picture-in-Picture Support

AkosFarago
Instructure
Instructure
19
3346

The New Navigation Experience

Unifying the product experience and user interfaces in Canvas has been ongoing for a while now and will slowly be adopted by all Instructure products. Studio is no exception, it is going to benefit a lot from this update in the long term and we are happy to share that it will receive the new navigation experience on May 6. For a quick illustration, let me show you the difference between the current and the upcoming design as it can be seen in a Studio course collection.

Screenshot 2024-05-01 at 12.48.33.png

And the updated design:

Screenshot 2024-05-01 at 12.49.14.png

 

In terms of functionality, we’ve made one change to simplify the experience. After careful consideration, we decided to reduce the media to be accessed in a course to the 1) course media, 2) the user’s own library and 3) the media shared with the user. Since Studio today is an LTI tool (psst, at least for now), it was a mere technical side effect that resulted in the same experience in the course content and in the global Studio access when you open your own Media Library. In the rare case you cross-referenced videos from course A to course B (embedded a video to a course from a different course), it will require some video management in your own library first - this limited workflow will help organize your content better at the end of the day, which will be further supported with the Media Library’s overarching UI update arriving this summer. 

AkosFarago_2-1714592471506.png

 

Furthermore, the design changes update the tray on the left and moves access of those functions into a menubar on the top:

Screenshot 2024-05-02 at 11.02.15.png

Screenshot 2024-05-02 at 11.03.46.png

Studio Capture gets Picture-in-Picture support

While we originally wanted to add it in March, we decided to focus on the stability and robustness of the new screen recording solution, and add new capabilities continuously. This seemed to be a good decision, the solution is super solid, any interrupted recording due to connectivity issues or browser crash can be one-click recovered during the next Studio launch. This makes it a great alternative for Screencast-o-matic and we are currently seeing 35% of all recordings made with Studio Capture as evidence for it! Have YOU tried it? 🙂

Picture in picture is our next new addition to it however, you will see the below popup when enabling the webcam during tab or window. 

 

AkosFarago_3-1714592471284.png

As of now, webcam during screen recording will only be available when sharing the entire screen; in exchange, that will give you the option to move it anywhere on the screen (even while recording), or zoom in and out. As a sneak peak, we are already working on the capability to blur the background!

 

Docs update - Integration via Postman

We heard it quite a few times that our guides are not clear when you want to connect to Studio via Postman. For that reason, we will update the guides and provide you a video tutorial as well to make sure it is smooth and easy.

Auto-publishing Captions - later in Q2!

Reflecting on my previous blog post on auto-captioning all videos, I wanted to give you a quick update here that after some discussion, we decided to implement auto-publish as well. The congruent feedback was that sometimes it is still better to have unreviewed captions than no captions at all for students requiring accessibility. Don’t worry, the admin and user level controls in the Settings will let you opt-in or out for your new uploads anytime.

Stay tuned! 

19 Comments
DaGIFT222
Community Participant

That looks really cool! I'm a canvas student, but I'm jealous of the cool tools the teachers get to use.

 

GIFT

CynthiaEdwards1
Community Participant

Thank you @AkosFarago for all the Canvas Studio updates!

AkosFarago
Instructure
Instructure
Author

Hi all,

I wanted to be super clear that the navigation replaces the tray on the left and moves access of those functions into a menubar on the top. I updated the blog post with screenshots on the change. Let me know if there are any questions with regards to this!

Best,

Akos

dbrace
Community Coach
Community Coach

Hi @AkosFarago, thank you and your team!

I have two (technically a few more as follow-ups) questions about this:

  1. Why was this announced on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 with a go live of Monday, May 6, 2024?  Should we be expecting this short amount of advance notice in the future related to Canvas Studio?  Was this related to the Canvas Studio maintenance that occurred on Monday, May 6, 2024 at 0700 UTC (3 AM ET), which we had almost no details about except for "Studio DB, major Postgres upgrade"?
  2. I am currently in my sandbox course and I see the new interface (specifically referring to the larger formatted text for the name of the course collection and new "Add" options on the right-side.  However, I do not see the arrow (as your screenshot showed next to "Historical Lessons") to the right of the name of the course collection to switch from the course collection to either "My Library" or "Shared with Me".  Is there something wrong is or that coming later this Summer?

EDIT: ADDED SCREENSHOT AND AN ADDITIONAL QUESTION

Screenshot 2024-05-06 at 11.11.10 AM.png

Doug

mwolfenstein
Community Participant

"In the rare case you cross-referenced videos from course A to course B..."

This is not a rare use case for my faculty who often are teaching multiple sections of the same course. The fact that there has been no management of videos necessary when using the same video in multiple courses has been extremely beneficial as my faculty have been migrating from Panopto (where video management was a huge problem) to Studio.

Edit: Having taken a look inside, it's not as bad as the phrasing in the post led me to believe. I would still strongly advise training any faculty who are likely to have this use case to get in the habit of recording their videos directly into their library for now.

notmichaeljfox
Community Explorer

@dbrace We're finding that if you have an admin role in Canvas the arrow is not available to you unless you also have an admin role in Studio. It does not seem to matter if you are enrolled in the course or not.

This is either a bug or a feature reduction as part of the changes. @AkosFarago Do you know which?

dbrace
Community Coach
Community Coach

Thank you for sharing the observation, @notmichaeljfox.  I think it might be the same as my experience but it does not seem to be what has been documented in this post and what end users would expect.

I have two Canvas LMS user accounts (one is an Canvas LMS admin user account and the other is a Canvas LMS regular user account) and two Canvas Studio user accounts (one is associated with my Canvas LMS admin user account and it is also an admin in Canvas Studio and the other is associated with my Canvas LMS regular user account and it is also a regular user account in Canvas Studio).

My Canvas LMS admin user account is not a teacher of any courses but it does have "Course Collections" in its Canvas Studio user account because of accessing Canvas LMS courses that have used Canvas Studio.

As my Canvas LMS admin user account, if I go into a course that has the "Studio" link visible in the left-side course navigation area, I do see the dropdown arrow.  Below is a screenshot (heavy redacted to respect privacy) showing my Canvas LMS admin user account using the "Studio" link from the left-side course navigation link within a course.

Canvas LMS admin -- Studio link in course -- arrow.png

As my Canvas LMS admin user account, if I go into Canvas Studio from the left-side global navigation button and then into the same collection from "Course Collections" in the top navigation bar, I do not see the arrow.

@AkosFarago, are you able to shine some light on this?

dbrace
Community Coach
Community Coach

@mwolfenstein, at my institution, we have been using Canvas Studio for about two years and we typically advise our faculty to add videos to the root of your Studio Library or within regular "Collections".  We advise against uploading videos to "Course Collections" and only let Canvas LMS/Studio populate them on its own as individual videos from their Library are used or students submit their work.

AkosFarago
Instructure
Instructure
Author

@dbrace , @notmichaeljfox rest assured it is not a feature reduction, it is a bug instead that we will be fixing asap. 

@mwolfenstein While I also understand the simplicity of cross-referencing videos, a video's main source is ideally a user's media library to make sure it is easy to track and shareable. I appreciate you for taking a look and making an effort to develop this new habit across the faculty! Feel free to message me here if you still have any questions!

dbrace
Community Coach
Community Coach

Thank you @AkosFarago. I thought that it was a bug.

Can you please comment on the other part of my initial comment.

Why was this announced on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 with a go live of Monday, May 6, 2024? Should we be expecting this short amount of advance notice in the future related to Canvas Studio? Was this related to the Canvas Studio maintenance that occurred on Monday, May 6, 2024 at 0700 UTC (3 AM ET), which we had almost no details about except for "Studio DB, major Postgres upgrade"?

AkosFarago
Instructure
Instructure
Author

@dbrace You are right, this should have been announced way before to give ample time for preparation and we will do our best at communicating such changes in the future. With regards to the maintenance, it was not related to it in any way.

msantiesteban
Community Explorer

I appreciate this update! Its nice to see this improvement @AkosFarago ! -LBUSD Admin

AkosFarago
Instructure
Instructure
Author

@dbrace@notmichaeljfox the arrow fix is now out in production. Thank you for your patience!

dbrace
Community Coach
Community Coach

@AkosFarago, thanks for the update but I do not see any change.

When I log into Canvas LMS as an admin and go into Canvas Studio as an admin (using the global navigation button), if I go into a "Course Collection", I do not see an arrow to the right of the name of the collection. I also do not see the arrow if I go into a regular collection.

When using Canvas LMS as an admin, if I go into a Canvas LMS course that is using Canvas Studio, I do see the arrow to the right of the course collection name. In that arrow's menu, I see the name of the collection, "My Library", and "Shared with Me".

If I log directly into my institution's instructuremedia.com webpage as a Canvas Studio admin, I have the same experience (no arrow next to the name of any collection).

From a regular Canvas LMS user account, if I go into a course and click on "Studio", I see the arrow to the right of the collection's name.  If I log into instructuremedia.com as a regular user and go into any collection, I do not see the arrow to the right of the collection's name.

AkosFarago
Instructure
Instructure
Author

@dbrace, thank you for the extensive testing.

With regards to the first use case, what purpose would the arrow serve for you and what pages would you expect to go from there? If you land in any course collection from the global navigation, you may just use the top navigation itself to access your personal media library, Shared with me page or any other course collection. That is the same when you log in directly to Studio via your institution's instructuremedia.com. 

Unless we miss something here, not having the arrow is the intended behaviour. The arrow does have its functions when you access Studio from the course navigation and we wanted to provide alternative navigation capability to those places that make the most sense (since the same top menu navigation as seen in the global access would break design patterns inside the course navigation)

 

 

dbrace
Community Coach
Community Coach

You are welcome, @AkosFarago. I think it comes down to consistency from a visual experience. Now that you have explained it, I do understand the difference(s) but someone else might not. For times when the arrow is not present, it would be ideal if that is mentioned in documentation.

Jeff_F
Community Coach
Community Coach

@AkosFarago - please send word if you desire a beta test customer for the auto publishing of Studio captions.

 

All the best, Jeff

robert_hollenbe
Community Participant

Agree with @dbrace that short notice has been a problem. Also, calling this a 'Navigation Update' in the headline is disingenuous. When you change functionality, please say so. Although it might not impact large numbers of teachers, it has turned out to be quite a bit of work for a few of them.

dbrace
Community Coach
Community Coach

Thank you, @robert_hollenbe. One of my concerns related to a "Navigation Update" without advanced notice is that all of our internally developed resources and professional development now have to be redesigned or they are no longer accurate. Yes, there are guides at Canvas Studio Guide but they are incomplete for specific use cases. If @AkosFarago and the Studio team had given us advanced notice, the change could have been announced internally and we could have told them (1) what changes will look like and (2) when they will go into effect.