Activities: Panopto resource module
Tony ButlerIn short, the plugin lets Moodle decide if user is allowed to access video resource, and does background work to provide access to recording on demand. This approach is somewhat simpler than used in official Panopto Block plugin and still secure, but might be not suitable for everyone.
This plugin requires Panopto video platform, which is a commercial software. For more details see https://www.panopto.com/
Features
- This is resource module plugin, not a block, e.g it supports separate groups, availability, completion features.
- Moodle resource module permission is the definitive source of authorisation, e.g. separate groups, availability features, category enrolments are respected.
- Repository plugin makes navigation, searching and choosing the right video easier.
- No need to maintain a separate folder per course in Panopto and sync enrolled users for folder access.
- Any video can be added to course irrespective of its location in Panopto folder structure as long as teacher who adds it has editing or publishing rights.
- Moving video to different folder will not break access, access is granted to video, not to folder.
- Same video can be used in different courses, no need to duplicate it and place at different folders.
- Does not clash with manual permissions allocation via Panopto interface, you can grant user access manually to folder or video if required.
Use-case and a word of caution
At Lancaster University, Panopto is used for automated lecture recordings, but Panopto is not the main point for accessing recorded videos by students. In other words, students are always accessing video recordings through Moodle. If you are using Panopto as main video hosting platform and you expect students to see folders that are matching Moodle courses (like when Panopto Block is used) this plugin will not provide that functionality.
Installation and Configuration
This plugin requires Panopto repository plugin to be installed and configured, it is using it for navigation through directory tree on Panopto side and other API calls.
For details on plugin configuring and how to link it with Panopto, please refer to documentation.
Sets
Screenshots
Contributors
has anybody tried using both this plugin as well as the official block_panopto Plugin on the same moodle instance? If so does it work seamlessly or did you experience any problems?
Thanks in advance!
Technically, both plugins can work together I suppose, but you would still need to maintain video allocation the old way (i.e. put them in the course folders to make them appear in the block). This can be confusing and make permissions not intuitive (e.g. if you remove video from course folder in Panopto, but it remain as activity, people would still be able to view it, or for example of same video is in course folder on Panopto and used in Moodle activity restricted to course group, everyone enrolled in the course will be able to view it, so group restriction will not apply). What is your reasoning behind the need of using both plugins? If you only need a block that will show all Panopto videos used in the course (that were added as activity modules), it is easier to develop a block plugin that will simply list them (and will respect current user permissions as well, i.e. will not list videos restricted to course groups that user has no access).
If you want to discuss more, please create a ticket for this plugin on bug tracker (see URL in description above).
More complicated logic might be possible with adding custom completion rules to module that would make extra Panopot API query to UsageReporting.GetSessionUserExtendedDetailedUsage (e.g. to determine what proportion of video has been viewed, how many attempts to view has been made, etc.) and draw completion result from this data (matching it with some completion criteria, e.g. n% of video has been viewed). This is not currently implemented, but possible to develop.