Publishing Video to Blackboard

Blackboard is a course management system that is commonly used for publishing and maintaining online content.

Note: This section assumes you are familiar with the interface of Blackboard.

To publish to Blackboard, there are two general steps:

Create a folder for the file(s).
Upload your file(s) to the Blackboard server.

Organizing Files: Folders

The first task in publishing a video to Blackboard is to create a new folder, also known as a directory. Within this folder, you will place your file(s).

To create a new folder:

Log into your course as the course manager (instructor).
Select the "Control Panel" option in the navigation list (bottom left side of the screen).
Select the location where you would like the folder to be placed. For this example, select "Course Documents."
Select "Add Folder" (see Image 40).

Image 40: Creating a new folder in Blackboard

Under the "Folder Information" section, provide the name of the new folder. For this example, name the new folder "Accessible Video."
Under the "Folder Information" section, provide text that offers a description of the new folder. For this example, provide the text as "This folder contains accessible video."
Select "Submit" (bottom of the screen).
The name of the folder and its description are displayed within Blackboard at the specified location. For this example, the folder "Accessible Video" is listed under "Course Documents".

It is recommended that you create a common folder into which you place all files. For this example, the common folder was named "Accessible Video." However, a file is usually associated with other files, such as images or audio. Thus, each file should have its own folder within the common folder; this is called a subfolder, also known as a subdirectory. Within this subfolder, you will place a file and all its associated files.

To create a sub-folder:

Log into your course as the course manager (instructor).
Select the "Control Panel" option in the navigation list (bottom left side of the screen).
Select the folder where you want to place the sub-folder. For this example, select "Course Documents" then "Accessible Video".
Select "Add Folder."

In the "Folder Information" section, provide the name of the new subfolder. For this example, name the new subfolder "Ubicomp."
In the "Folder Information" section, provide text that offers a description of the new subfolder. For this example, provide the text as "This video clip is of Ubiquitous Computing."
Select "Submit" (bottom of the screen).
The name of the subfolder and its description are displayed within Blackboard at the specified location. For this example, the subfolder "Ubicomp" is listed under "Accessible Video", which is under "Course Documents" (see Image 41).

Image 41: New sub-folder displayed in Blackboard

Uploading Files

The second task in publishing a Word document to Blackboard is to upload all the files. When working with accessible video, this usually involves several files or one zip file.

Note: You will probably want to create a zip file for the Real files. This may be necessary for Windows Media On-Demand Producer files as well if your CMS server is not running a Windows Operating System.

File Types To Upload for Windows Media On-Demand Producer (WMODP)

If the video editing software,Windows Media On-Demand Producer, was used, you will want to upload (or add to a zip, then upload) any files with the following extensions:

*.class,
*.asx,
*.asf,
*.htm or *.html, and
*.gif.

File Types To Upload for Media Access Generator (MAGPie)

If the video editing software, MAGPie, was used, you will want to upload (or add to a zip, then upload) any files with the following extensions:

*.smil,
*.rt,
*.txt, and
*.rm.

To upload a file:

Log into your course as the course manager (instructor).
Select the "Control Panel" option in the navigation list (bottom left side of the screen).
Select the folder into which the file should be uploaded. For this example, select "Course Documents" then "Accessible Video" and then "UbiComp".
Select "Add Item" (top of the screen).
Provide text that offers a description of the file to be uploaded. For this example, provide the text as "This video clip is of Ubiquitous Computing which is the topic of many, many interesting discussions at parties."
In the "Content Attachments" section, select "Browse."
This opens a "Choose File" dialog box (bottom of the screen) for you to locate the file on your computer that you want to upload to Blackboard. For this example, select the file named "default.htm" (for Window Media Producer) or the ZIP file (if you created).
Select "Open" to confirm the file selection and close the "Choose File" dialog box.
Select "Submit" (at the bottom of the screen).
Blackboard will upload the file and you will receive confirmation that the file has been successfully uploaded.

Note: Depending on the file size, the time to upload will vary.

When working with video, there are other types of files, such as audio, text transcript, etc that are referenced (or linked) within the file that was just uploaded. If you are not working with a zip file,then these other files will need to be associated in Blackboard. For this example, the file named "ubicomplarge.asx" needs to be associated with the uploaded file of "default.htm" (see Image 42) .

Image 42: Uploading associated files in Blackboard

To associate files:

Log into your course as the course manager (instructor).
Select the "Control Panel" option in the navigation list (bottom left side of the screen).
Select the same folder as where the file that was just uploaded is located. For this example, select "Course Documents" then "Accessible Video" and then "Ubicomp".
Select "Modify" (right of the folder name).

Note: This will allow you to alter the existing link that was created when the file named "default.htm" was uploaded.
The "Add Content" screen should appear; in the "Content Attachments" section, select "Browse."
This opens a "Choose File" dialog box (bottom of the screen) for you to locate the file on your computer that you want to upload to Blackboard For this example, select the file named "ubicomplarge.asx."
Select "Open" to confirm the file selection and close the "Choose File" dialog box.
You will be returned to the "Add Content" screen.
By default, Blackboard will create a link to the file. However, when working with Windows Media only the file named "default.htm" should be visible; this keeps the users from seeing several files, and selecting the incorrect one. In the "Options" section, you can change the visibility of the file. To make the file non-visible, select "no" to the question "Do you want to make the content visible".
Note: If keeping the link to the file visible, you can specify a name for the link to the file in the "Content Attachments" section. Be certain that the name of the link makes sense when read out of context. Avoid using the filename or names such as "Read more", "Audio", or "Click here."
Select "Submit" (bottom of the screen).
You will receive a confirmation that the file has been successfully uploaded and added to the content.

Note: Depending on the file size, the time to upload will vary.
Repeat steps (d - l) for each file that needs to be associated.

Note: For a list of file types that should be uploaded, refer to File Types for MAGpie and File Types for Windows Media.

Viewing Uploaded File

Once all associated files such as captioning and audio have been uploaded, you can view (or as needed download) the completed file within Blackboard by selecting the link to that file. For this example, select "Course Documents" then "Accessible Video" and then "Ubicomp" to view the file named "default.htm."

The next page will discuss publishing video to the course management system, WebCT.

Previous Page
Page 15:
Lab: MAGpie

Top of Page arrow up

Page 16

Page 17:
Publish to WebCT