Recordings

Rewind and repeat!

Record your sessions so that your students can access presentations whenever they need them. Stop and restart whenever you need to, and when finished, and share with your students.

Recorded sessions are compressed and saved as MP4s. Recordings include activity in the live session.

  • Audio
  • Any content shared or active speaker video. If both are shared during the session, only the content shared is recorded.
  • Captions entered during the live session or added later by a moderator. Only one caption track is available. If your session had more than one caption track, only the first available one is captured.
  • Chat messages in the Everyone channel. Private messages and chat messages in breakout groups are not recorded.

Only moderators can turn recording on in sessions.

Everyone can view the recordings from any device as often as they want. There are no view limits.

Recordings need to be converted into a playable format before viewing. The first time a recording is accessed the conversion begins. It may take a few minutes but once is has been done the recording can be viewed by everybody.

If you want chat messages to be anonymous in the recording, make sure you select that option in Session Settings before you start the session. To learn more, see Session Settings.

If there are more than one captions available during the session, the recording will capture only the first one. To learn more, see Live closed captioning.

 

Record sessions

You can have multiple recordings during one session. If you decide to continue recording a session after you have stopped, a new recording is saved and added to the list of recordings for that session.

Open the Session menu and select Start Recording. The recording camera appears on with a red dot while recording is in progress.

To finish recording, open the Session menu and select Stop Recording.

If you are sharing a file, allow 8 seconds for the recording to include the shared file before moving on.

How do I find the recordings?

You can view recordings in courses you are enrolled in. You may be able to download recordings. Moderators must allow session recording downloads for each session.

Go to Collaborate, open the Menu, and select Recordings.

Not sure where to find Collaborate recordings in your course? Jump to Join Sessions and go to your LMS to learn more.

Recording email

Collaborate emails moderators links to their recordings. This requires a valid email address. Moderators who own the session or join by personal invitation get the email. The email is not sent to moderators by guest link or promotion during the session.

Recording player

The recording player has the same look and feel as your Collaborate session. There is a Recording menu similar to the Session menu in your live sessions and recording playback controls.

The recording player is an HTML5 player. It is only available in the Ultra Scheduler, Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI), and Blackboard Collaborate ULTRA building block users at this time.

  • Recording menu: Open the Recording menu at the top left of your screen. From here you can download the full recording, download caption transcripts, download chat transcripts, get extra help, or report an issue if you are having trouble with the recording.
  • Captions: Captions are available if they are added later by a moderator or live closed captioning is used during the session. Closed captions are on in the recording by default. Select Closed Captions
    in the playback controls to turn off the captions or adjust the size of the caption font.

    You can also download a transcript for the captions from the Recording menu.

  • Playback controls: The intuitive playback controls allow you to navigate through the recording the way you want.
    • Pause: With your keyboard, press the Spacebar to pause and play the recording.
    • Repeat/Forward: With your keyboard, press the Left and Right arrow keys to repeat or skip the recording by 10 seconds.
    • Progress: Slide the marker on the progress bar to move through the recording. With a keyboard press Shift + Left arrow or Shift + Right arrow to repeat or skip the recording by 10 seconds.
    • Volume: With your keyboard, press the Up and Down arrow keys to increase and decrease the volume by 5%.
    • Closed captions: Select Closed captions
      to view the captions with the recordings. You can also download a transcript of the captions from the Recording menu.
  • Chat messages: Open the Chat panel at the bottom right of your screen to see the complete chat history of the recorded session. To learn more, see Chat messages in recordings.

Don't worry, we'll walk you through it. When you first open the recording player we'll show you where everything you need is.

Chat messages in recordings

Open the Chat panel at the bottom right of your screen to see the complete chat history of the recorded session.

Only chat messages in the Everyone channel are recorded. Private messages and breakout group chat messages are not recorded.

As the recording plays the chat messages posted highlight so you can see what was being said during that moment. You can also navigate to a specific location in the recording by selecting a chat message time stamp. If a message is faded, you haven't reached that part of the recording yet.

You can download chat transcripts from the Recording menu.

Chat Recordings and transcripts are only available in the HTML5 recording player.

Moderators can also make chat messages in the recording anonymous from the session settings. This needs to be done before starting the live session and recording it. To learn more, see Session Settings.

Download recordings and transcripts

 

If the moderator has allowed session recording downloads, you can download recordings and transcripts from the recording player Recording menu.

Open the Recording menu at the top left of your screen.

  • Download the full recording
  • Download caption transcripts
  • Download chat transcripts

You can also download captions from the main Recordings list.

  1. From Recordings find a recording with Closed Captions (CC).
  2. Select the Closed caption options menu and select Download captions.

Allow users to download recordings

From the Collaborate scheduler, you can allow session recording downloads for each session. Open a session's Session Settings and check Allow download recording. Any recordings made in this session can be downloaded while downloads are allowed.

The Collaborate Scheduler is available in Blackboard Learn and LTI compliant LMS courses. The Collaborate Scheduler is not available in the Blackboard Open LMS Collaborate activity module.

Filter and search for recordings

You can filter the list of recordings that appear by all recent recordings made in the last 30 days and recordings in a date range. Use the filter to help you find the recording you are looking for.

If you know the name of the recording you are looking for, select Search Recordings and type the recording name.

Edit recording names

The Collaborate Scheduler is available in Blackboard Learn and LTI compliant LMS courses. The Collaborate Scheduler is not available in the Blackboard Open LMS Collaborate activity module.

Give your recordings a new name.

  1. From the Collaborate scheduler, select Recordings and find the recording you want.
  2. Open the Recording options and select Edit name.
  3. Change the name and select Save.

The recording name always begins with the session name. Edits to the name change the text after the backslash (/) only.

Delete recordings

The Collaborate Scheduler is available in Blackboard Learn and LTI compliant LMS courses. The Collaborate Scheduler is not available in the Blackboard Open LMS Collaborate activity module.

  1. From the Collaborate scheduler, select Recordings and find the recording you want.
  2. Open the Recording options and select Delete.
  3. Select the Yes, Delete It button to confirm.

Share your recordings

Students can find session recordings from in their course. Where the recordings are depends on your institution. Tell your students how to find them.

You can also share your recordings with anyone not in a course with a recording link. Check your email for a recording link when you stop recording a session. You can also copy the recording link from the Recording page.

Links for the recordings are obfuscated, which means that the links use random characters instead of descriptive file names. This helps ensure that users can only view a recording if they have the link. To allow guests to view recordings, access to the recordings is not restricted and recordings don’t require a password. This means that anybody who has access to the link can watch the recording and can also share the link with others. Please keep this in mind before sharing links of recordings with potentially confidential or otherwise sensitive content.

  1. Go to your Recordings page.
  2. Find the recording you want to share and open the Recording options menu.
  3. Select Copy Link.
  4. Share the public link with anybody.

 

Add captions to your recordings

If you used live closed captioning in your session, there are captions with your recording already!

Add captions to your videos to engage all learners. Captioning video creates accessible content for individuals who are deaf or hearing impaired. Captions can help all students consume the video content. The uses for captions are limitless.

Examples

  • Anyone working in a noisy environment can read captions.
  • Non-native speakers can read captions in their own language.
  • Students learning to read can follow along with the speaker.
  • Students can see the spelling of terms that will be on a test.
  • Anyone can search the session for key terms.

You can upload Video Text Tracks (VTT) caption and SubRip Subtitle (SRT) files to add or replace captions in recordings.

To learn more about VTT caption files, visit W3C WebVTT and Mozilla WebVTT.

To learn more about SRT files, visit the SubRip topic on Wikipedia and How to Create an SRT File by 3Play Media.

  1. From Collaborate scheduler, select Recordings and find the recording you want.

    The Collaborate Scheduler is available in Blackboard Learn and LTI compliant LMS courses. The Collaborate Scheduler is not available in the Blackboard Open LMS Collaborate activity module.

  2. Select the Recording options menu, and select Add caption source.
  3. Browse for the VTT file and upload it.

Overwrite captions

Recordings with captions have a Closed caption options menu. Open that menu if you want to overwrite the captions.

  1. From Recordings, find the recording you want.
  2. Select the Closed captions options menu, and select Overwrite caption source.
  3. Browse for the VTT file and upload it.

Recording and storage

More on Collaborate with the Ultra experience file and recording storage on Behind the Blackboard (available in English only)

Recordings and breakout groups

What is said or viewed in a breakout room isn't captured in recordings. Collaborate stops recording your session if all attendees leave the main room to join breakout groups. 

You can start your recording again from the Session Menu when one or more attendees return to the main room.

FAQs

How do I create more than one recording in my session?

Use the start and stop recording option in the Session menu. When you select stop the recording ends. When you select start a new recording begins.

How long does it take before I or someone else can view the recordings?

It should only take minutes for the recording to be available for viewing.

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