Video Content Management - Teaching with Panopto Videos as a Creator


Introduction

Panopto is Virginia Tech’s chosen video content management system and video creation tool that allows users to create, share, and manage video content easily. 

Panopto is integrated into Virginia Tech’s Canvas platform, allowing instructors to record, upload, and share videos directly within Canvas. Panopto also provides tools for organizing videos, tracking engagement, and enabling students to review content.

This guide covers teaching with Panopto Video tools for creators. For additional Panopto topics, please see: Virginia Tech Panopto Resources.

Contents

Instructions

Accessing Panopto in Canvas

When you access Panopto in Canvas, a course folder is created and shared with all enrollments.

  • Instructors will receive Creator access to create, upload, and manage video content.
  • Students will receive Viewer access to view video content.

There are two places to access Panopto in Canvas:

  • Global Navigation Menu: Not available until after Spring 2026.
  • Course Navigation Menu: Manage videos for a specific course.

To access Panopto Video in your Canvas site:

  1. Log into Canvas with your Virginia Tech PID and PID passphrase.
  2. Click on a Canvas site.
  3. On the Course Navigation Menu, click Panopto Video to view and manage your videos.

Resources:

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Publishing Videos in Canvas

Publishing Videos to the Panopto Course Folder

Any videos added to the Panopto course folder will be visible to students. To populate your Panopto course folder, click on Panopto Video in your Canvas course site. You can create videos by recording or uploading, or copy a video from another Panopto folder to your course folder.

Create a video

Option 1: Drag and drop videos from your computer into the Panopto Course Folder for your Canvas site.

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Option 2: Click the +Create button in the folder. Options include:
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  • Panopto for Mac/Windows: Record a video using Panopto’s desktop recorder
  • Panopto Capture: Record a video using Panopto’s browser-based recorder 
  • Upload media: Choose this option if the video already exists on your computer
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Copy an existing video

If the video already exists in another folder in Panopto, locate the video and copy it into the Panopto course folder for your Canvas site. 

  1. Locate the video you want to copy in Panopto.
  2. Hover over the video thumbnail, click the three dots button, and click Copy video.
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  3. Click on the Folder field to pull up a dropdown menu.
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  4. Search for or navigate the folder structure and click on the course folder for your Canvas site.
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  5. Reference Copy will be toggled on automatically. Click Save if you want to create a reference copy. If not, proceed to step 6.
    • Reference copies refer to the original video with its own viewer-contributed metadata (quiz results, comments, viewer statistics, and notes).
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  6.  If you do not want to make a reference copy, toggle this setting off, then click Save.
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See: How to Copy and Move Videos

Embedding Videos

Videos can be embedded using the Panopto tool on Canvas pages as well as places that have Canvas’ Rich Content Editor (RCE), such as assignments, quizzes, announcements, and discussions, allowing students to watch content without leaving Canvas. Use the embed tool to fold video content seamlessly into your other course materials to keep content organized and easy to navigate for students.

Embed a video into the Canvas RCE
  1. Create or edit a Canvas page, assignment, quiz, announcement, or discussion. 
  2. Click on the plug icon in the Rich Content Editor (RCE) menu.
  3. Click View All to see a pop-up of a list of all available tools.
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  4. In the pop-up, search for Panopto and click on Panopto Video.
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  5. Your Panopto account will appear.
  6. You'll see three options for embedding videos.
    • Choose: search through your available videos on Panopto.
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    • Upload: upload videos from your computer to Panopto.
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    • Record: record a new video using Panopto's browser recorder or app recorder.
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  7. Once you have chosen, uploaded, or recorded your video, locate the Video Embed Options section and expand it by clicking the up arrow.
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  8. Adjust the Video Embed Options to customize the player size, start time, and other options.
  9. Click Insert to embed the video. The video will appear in the Canvas RCE.
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For complete instructions and options, see: 

Adding Videos to Canvas Modules

If you use Modules to organize your course content and you don’t want to embed your videos into Canvas pages, you can insert a video link into Canvas modules. Students will be able to click on the link to launch the video in a new tab.

See: How to Insert a Video Link into a Canvas Module

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Creating Video Assignments

Panopto integrates with Canvas to support several types of video-based assignments. Depending on your curriculum, you can track student viewing activity on a video, embed a quiz into a video for students to view and complete, or collect video submissions from students. 

Grade on % Viewed 

This assignment type will assign a grade based on how much of a video a student watches.

When creating a Canvas assignment, set the Submission Type to External Tool, launch the Panopto Video tool, then choose Grade on % viewed. Panopto will track the total number of minutes watched; if a student scrubs forward without watching, their completion percentage will remain low.
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To learn how to set up this type of assignment, see:

Recommendations:

  • If you have created a Panopto quiz within a video, do not use it in a Grade on % viewed assignment- the tool does not support both methods of grading at this time.
  • Grades may take up to 3 hours to populate in the gradebook after the viewer watches the video.
  • To allow viewers to start/stop the video to watch the video in multiple sessions, the number of attempts must be set to unlimited or else it will only record the grade in retrospect to where the viewer initially stopped watching.

Grade on Quiz Results 

This assignment type requires instructors to embed quiz questions in a video. When students watch the video and answer the quiz questions, the quiz score will be recorded in the gradebook. When creating a Canvas assignment, set the Submission Type to External Tool, launch the Panopto Video tool, and choose Grade on quiz results. 

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To learn how to set up this type of assignment, see:

Recommendations:

  • Use the quiz setting Block advancing in the video to prevent students from seeking and skipping quiz questions.
  • You can add multiple quizzes to one video but only one score will be assigned.
  • For a quiz grade to be passed to the Canvas Gradebook, the user must complete all questions in the quiz, as there is no partial credit.
  • When there are multiple correct answers/multiple choice to a quiz question, the user will receive a zero score unless they select all of the correct answers. 
  • The option to Watch in Panopto, represented by the pop-out arrow icon in the lower right corner of the video, will be greyed out and unavailable as the Panopto Interactive Viewer cannot be launched in a new tab if the video is being graded as a quiz or based on a view. 

Video Submission Assignments

If instructors create a Canvas assignment that accepts text entry submissions, students can use the Panopto embed tool in the Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE) to submit a video. Please follow the instructions below to create the assignment in Canvas and share the student submission instructions with your students.

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Commenting on Videos

  • The Discussion tool allows viewers to post time-stamped comments on videos.
  • By default, these comments are only visible to moderators for the video (creators). 
  • Viewers can post:
    • Public comments (if enabled by the Creator)
    • Private comments (visible to Creators/Moderators only)
  • Creators/Moderators can review and publish comments as needed.

Moderating and Publishing Comments

As a Creator, you can publish private comments that viewers have posted on the video.

  1. Go to the video where you want to publish comments.
  2. Click on the Discussion tab.
  3. Review the comments.
    • By default, all comments will be shown.
    • Filter comments by clicking All, then selecting Public or Private from the drop-down list.
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      • Public comments will have an eye icon.
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      • Private comments will have an eye icon with a slash through it.
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  4. Toggle the eye icon to publish or unpublish comments.

Enabling Public Comments

As a Creator, you can go into the video settings to enable public comments for a particular video.

  1. Locate your video.
  2. Hover over the video, then click on the gear icon to pull up the video's settings.
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  3. Check the box for Enable public comments by default on this video.
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    • When this box is checked, comments will be posted publicly by default.
    • Viewers can still choose to post a private comment instead so that only moderators can view the comment.
      • From there, you can choose to publish the comment.

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Getting Help

If you need help with Panopto in general:

If you still have questions:

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