Kaltura - Using Media Channel Links for Aggregated Analytics [UW-Madison]

Note: Students are unique individuals and are more complex than their data - be sure to consider them holistically. Please review UW-Madison Learning Analytics Guiding Principles before continuing in this document.

This document explores more advanced Kaltura analytics topics - scenarios where user analytics are captured and media channel links.

Data is aggregated in two different areas by Kaltura:

  1. With each individual media item. Data collection for unique users can be done by:
    1. Embedding in Canvas using the Kaltura/Canvas integration. Embedding Kaltura MediaSpace media in Canvas is outlined in Canvas - Upload and Embed a New Kaltura Mediaspace Video in a Canvas Page [UW-Madison].
    2. Linking to the individual media item in Kaltura Media Space as long as the media is not unlisted. The student must login to Kaltura MediaSpace to view the media.
  2. With each channel that contains media items. Data collection for unique users can be done by:
    1. Using the “Media Channel Link” (outlined below).
    2. Using the Media Gallery (essentially a channel) in your Canvas course. This process is described in Kaltura - Using "Kaltura Gallery" Course Media Galleries and Analytics in Canvas [UW-Madison] .

When you link to an individual media item in Kaltura, unique user data will not be gathered if the media item is published as “Unlisted” and is not recommended. Instead of publishing each individual media item as “Unlisted”, you should publish these items to a channel and use the “Media Channel Link” (see below).

Media channel links

Media channel links are links that load a media item within the context of a channel. It's advantageous to use this link because it aggregates all student views for all the videos in a course as long as the permissions of the channel are set in such a way that it requires NetID login (open, restricted, and private). Information on channel publishing settings is available in Kaltura - How to Change Publication Settings to Media in Kaltura MediaSpace [UW-Madison] . This allows you to look at aggregated analytics combined for all the videos in a channel. “Link to Media Page” links will only collect data at the individual media item level.

Here are what the two links look like:
Media channel link: https://mediaspace.wisc.edu/media/TestVideoForKaltura3/1_f5pf7ip6/78531822
Link to media page: https://mediaspace.wisc.edu/media/TestVideoForKaltura3/1_f5pf7ip6

The key difference is that bold text on the end of the Media Channel Link. That is the channel identifier. You get to the media channel link by navigating first to the channel and then loading the individual media page from within the channel. Here is where you get the Media Channel Link:
A screenshot showing a video in a channel. An orange outline at the top indicates the media channel link. A red outline near the bottom shows the link to the media page.
Note that you will not have options to customize the start and end time if you use the media channel link.