Ability to replace the media button in the new RCE with our media platform of choice

[burrielr]

The move to put all LTI plugins into a dropdown is going to severely impact media usage at our institution as presently our faculty and students are accustomed to pressing an existing button on the old RCE when inserting media into their Canvas content. Having to select a dropdown menu to find their media option hidden therein means that most won't find the option at all. To have a different media button in the toolbar (the native Canvas media integration) front and center presents a situation with our users will instinctively press on that button.

Compounding matters is that depending on screen/browser size, the "PLUGIN" button in RCE may not appear, replaced instead with a 3 button "MORE" button, meaning as many as 3 clicks to get to the 3rd party media platform of the school's choice.

Here is the toolbar on wide screens with the browser fully expanded:

Here is the toolbar on narrower screens or with the browser not fully expanded:

Yet another compounding factor is that Canvas uses the terminology "My Media" in the native Canvas media integration, a term already regularly used elsewhere, specifically for schools using the Kaltura LTI plugin.

To present users with two DIFFERENT "My Media" elements, each going to different media repositories would be catastrophic, resulting in endless user support headaches.

We propose that Canvas administrators should be able to choose which media platform we want for that button (be it Kaltura, Panopto, YouTube, or Instructure's Canvas Studio, etc.)

Short of that, alternatives include:

- Ability to remove the native Canvas media button from the new RCE

*AND*

- Ability to select one or two LTI integrations of the administrator's choosing to appear on the new RCE in a position of their choosing rather than in the plugin dropdown

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the Canvas Deploy Notes (2020-08-26)

[jwadec]

That’s what I find most bizarre about this whole thing. Why is their own product not better integrated? 

[James]

jwadec, 

Maybe because they don't want people to use it? I don't normally pay any attention to conspiracy theories, but imagine a scenario where people adopted Canvas Studio (or Arc) for a really low price based on expected usage; a public company got bought out by a private equity firm; a world-wide pandemic happened and everyone went online; usage and storage costs skyrocketed; Instructure is losing money and the more that people use Studio the more money they lose.

Or it could have been as simple as they wanted all the LTI's put together under one menu to save space.

[peytoncraighill]

Hi!

[Nervously dips toe in pool.]

I spent the morning wrapping my brain around this thread and its attachments, and then playing with both RCEs, and then talking through some things with the team. Thanks for all the feedback. I'm left wondering...Is there anyone using both Canvas media and other media tools (Kaltura, Panopto, Studio, etc.) on purpose? It seems like it would be relatively easy for us to check if you've got another popular media tool installed and show that in place of the Canvas media options. Pros: no custom hack to hide Canvas media options, no confusing people by presenting multiple media tools, easier access to your preferred media tool...Cons: potential for angry phone call when someone who used both Canvas media and some other media tool sees Canvas media disappear.

Looking for a sanity check...

[burrielr]

Hi Peyton, thanks for engaging this issue head on. I'm afraid I don't have a very constructive answer for you, though. Do most institutions use only one media platform? Probably. Do some use both a 3rd party media platform *plus* the integrated Canvas media tools? Almost certainly. Heck, I suspect that some institutions probably even use *multiple* media platforms, such as a mix of Kaltura, Panopto, and the integrated Canvas media tools. I've learned long ago that the moment you implement a solution that's supposed to please everyone, someone's going to come up with a fringe case that doesn't work. I suspect a feature that will allow admins to replace the integrated Canvas media tools with a 3rd party platform of their choice will likely make *most* people here happy. But it won't make *everyone* here happy.

[meichin]

Exactly how I was intending to respond, but you beat me to it. Our users use both Canvas media upload and Kaltura. We promote the Kaltura platform for many reasons (auto-captions for one) but students often use the Canvas media upload because they don't need their assignment upload to be captioned. Thanks for asking, Peyton!

[peytoncraighill]

This is great input -- thanks!

[alex7]

Overall I agree with Raul and Mary. This is a diverse group, so flexibility is important. But also we really need whatever you figure out to be available before the enforcement date 🙂

At our institution, we guide our users to use Kaltura. Since the Embed Kaltura Media button appears next to the built-in tools in the current/old RCE, invariably some users pick the built-in media tools since they don't know otherwise. I don't believe they do that intentionally. So Peyton's idea could work for us, but we'd need to analyze the impacts and communicate with those affected. 

That said, one edge case to consider is how this might work in the Canvas Student mobile app for Android and iOS. In the Student app, making a text submission to an assignment does not use the normal RCE. I'm assuming any potential changes would not impact the Media Recordings submission type.

That said, thank you indeed Peyton for engaging with this group directly. 

[hockin]

Hi,

Our university uses Kaltura.  We have a school that has a license for Panopto.  We also have a school that promotes using the Canvas media tool for quick and easier media creation.

Sanity checks are not needed when every school is a mixed bag.  Basically we want it all.  I would like both the Kaltura media and Canvas media tool in the toolbar.  

[christopher_phi]

Great news from  @peytoncraighill ‌ today on Summer 2020 updates to resolve this issue: 

RCE Updates - Summer 2020 

Specifically: 

• We’re moving LTI tools to the “media” section of the toolbar because embedding an LTI might as well be embedding any other type of media (video/image/document).
• LTI favoriting will soon allow admins to set two LTI tools as “favorites” to appear on the toolbar for quick access.
• We’re planning to add an account setting for “Disable uploading to Canvas media” from the new RCE. We’ll still allow people to choose from files they already have in Canvas media, but this will let Canvas admins encourage the use of a school’s preferred media app during content creation if needed.

Lots of other positive changes mentioned in that post as well. 

[buellj]

That's wonderful news - thanks for sharing that!