What is Panopto?

Panopto is Emerson's video-hosting and sharing platform. It's similar to YouTube, but as a member of the Emerson community you have unlimited storage. Instructors can use Panopto to record themselves and/or their PowerPoints, create screencasts, store and share videos, and add interactive quizzes to videos.

To access your Panopto account, go to panopto.emerson.edu and log-in with your Emerson credentials.

To see all of Emerson's Panopto guides, visit Getting Started with Panopto.

Start a Video Library by Uploading to My Folder

When incorporating video into your teaching practices, it helps to have a central place to store and manage your recordings. Panopto provides this in the form of your personal My Folder.

When you visit panopto.emerson.edu, you will see a link to My Folder in the lefthand menu. Videos stored in My Folder are private until you choose to share or embed them. This is beneficial because:

It lets you control when students see your uploaded videos.
It allows you to embed your videos in specific contexts.
Videos stored in My Folder and embedded in Canvas will continue to display after you import your content into a new version of your course.

If you've already recorded a video in your favorite app (such as iMovie, Premiere, or Camtasia), you can upload that video to My Folder. Here's how:

Go to panopto.emerson.edu.
This takes you to the Panopto web portal. Click My Folder in the lefthand menu.
Click the purple Create button at top-right, then select Upload Media. Follow the prompts to upload your file:

The Emerson College Panopto web portal, opened to My Folder, with the Create button indicated. The Create button has a dropdown menu containing "Record a new session," "Upload media," "Webcast," "Scheduled Recording," "Build a session," "Playlist," and "New Folder." "Upload Media" is indicated.

Your video is now uploaded to My Folder. It will take a few minutes to process before becoming viewable.

If you haven't already recorded a video, you can use the Panopto recorder app. Go to panopto.emerson.edu and access My Folder as described above. Click Create, but instead of clicking Upload Media, click Record a New Session. You will be prompted to download the free Panopto app. Do so, and then click Launch Panopto. This opens the recorder. My Folder should be listed at the top next to "Folder," which means the video you're about to record will automatically be uploaded there.

These guides explain how to use the Panopto Recorder app for Windows or Mac.

This guide provides more details and screenshots for uploading to My Folder.

Once you have videos in My Folder, you can hover your mouse over each video to reveal its Settings, Share, Edit, Stats, and Delete buttons. You can also add subfolders to your My Folder to better organize your videos. This makes managing your video library easy!

Note: Panopto is intended to host videos you've recorded yourself and videos that fall under Fair Use. If a video already exists online (on a site such as YouTube or Vimeo), you don't need to upload it to Panopto. Instead, provide a link directly to the video.

If you copy-and-paste a YouTube link into a Canvas text editor, it will automatically embed the video.

Embed Your Videos in Canvas

Now that you've uploaded a video to My Folder, you can show it to your students by embedding it anywhere in your Canvas course where you have a text editor—this includes pages, assignments, discussions, and announcements.

To embed a Panopto video in the Canvas text editor, use the little green Panopto embed button found in the formatting bar above the editor (it looks like a recycling symbol). When you use this button to embed a video, all students in your course will automatically have permission to view it. This means you don't have to worry about changing sharing settings!

This guide illustrates each step of how to embed a Panopto video in Canvas.

Troubleshooting tip: If you click the button and don't see your videos, be sure to select My Folder from the dropdown menu at the top of the embedder window.

We are currently looking at a Canvas page. Here is an example of an embedded Panopto video on this page:

Shortcut!

The Panopto embed button above the text editor does more than just embed. When you click it, you're presented with three tabs: Choose, Upload, and Record. After using the dropdown menu above these tabs to select My Folder, you can use the Upload tab to upload a file on your computer, or the Record tab to open the Panopto recorder app.

If you already have spots picked out in your Canvas course for videos, this button can be your one-stop-shop for uploading or recording them, then embedding them!

What Does the "Panopto" Link in My Course Menu Do?

The Panopto link in your course's lefthand menu is a shortcut to the same Panopto account you can access at panopto.emerson.edu. It brings you to a "course folder" with videos viewable only to members of the specific course you're in. This is a useful place to upload "just in time" videos, such as news clips about current events, so students can view them quickly. You can also access your other Panopto folders, such as My Folder, by using the folder dropdown menu on this page.

You can upload videos to your course folder and direct students to find them by clicking "Panopto" in the course menu. However, for the reasons described above, a better practice is to upload videos to your My Folder, then embed them in a page, discussion, assignment, or announcement.