Panopto is the video streaming service behind the “Course Media Gallery” in Glow, and can also be used to embed videos in WordPress pages or shared directly from the Panopto site.
Starting January 20, 2025, inactive videos unviewed for 4 consecutive years will be deleted.
What is the difference between Active and Inactive Content?
How do I know if my content is inactive?
How do I reactivate my content?
How can I Find, Move, and Preserve Videos from Former Courses?
Where can I find and restore in bulk my inactive videos?
How do I make sure my content continues to stay active through the semester?
How do I make sure my content stays active through my entire time at Williams?
What is the difference between Active and Inactive Content?
When new media are added to Panopto, they’re placed in active storage and available for immediate playback by viewers in Glow courses or on the web. When items haven’t been viewed for 24 months though, they automatically become inactive and are moved to archival storage. Currently no content is deleted and all media will continue to show up in searches on Panopto and in the Course Media Gallery regardless of whether it’s active or inactive. The only difference between the two is that media in archival storage has to be re-activated before it can be viewed. The process of re-activating a video can insert a delay of up to 48-hours.
Starting January 20, 2025, under a new Panopto policy, inactive videos not viewed for another 2 years (4 consecutive years total) will be permanently deleted.
How do I know if my content is inactive?
The easiest way to tell if your media is active is to click on it. When you click on an archived video in Glow or Panopto, the following message will appear: “This video is archived and must be restored from the archive before it can be viewed. Restoration may take up to 48 hours.” Panopto videos that have been embedded in WordPress or on another site will appear greyed out, and will display the same message as above.
Not only will clicking on a video tell you if it’s active, it’ll also reset the activity clock for that piece, so that it won’t be archived for a further 24 months.
How can I Find, Move, and Preserve Videos from Former Courses?
- Head over to the “Course Media Gallery” in any of your current or past GLOW courses.
- Open the dropdown menu in the top left– it has a folder icon with the name of your current course.
- Select “Williams” from the dropdown menu. It should show the title of every course for which you have a Course Media Gallery since 2017.
- Choose a strategy for organizing your video content:
- To keep them in place in the old course folder: If you want to keep them in-situ, in an old course folder, make a note of the folder name.
- To move all videos in the course folder to “My Folder”- a neutral, course-independent space: hover over a single video, click the checkbox to “Select Individual, then select the checkbox in the pop-up menu above the video list. Then select the Move icon. We recommend moving them to “My Folder” to keep all your important videos in one place.
- To move a single video: Hover over the video, select the Settings icon, then change the folder location to “My folder.”
- Send a request to your ATC or email [email protected] with the names of the folders that you would like to preserve.
DIY option: Open up your videos to and play them for one second to give them a “View.” This resets the clock, so they will be moved to the archive after 2 years and deleted after 4 years, if left untouched.
Where can I find, and restore in bulk, my inactive videos?
NOTE: All videos are temporarily active until February 20th, 2025. Before February 2025, please refer to the above question, How Can I View, Move, and Preserve Old Videos?
- For each video you want to restore, click in the small white box in the upper-left hand corner of each video thumbnail. A check mark will appear to indicate it’s selected.
- Or, if you want to select all your archived videos, click the white box that appears (after selecting one video, see screenshot below) and all videos will be selected.
- Once you’ve selected all the videos you’d like to restore, click the icon of a folder with an up arrow to restore.
You know you’ve been successful when the videos say “Restoration in process” and/or no longer appear in the archives.
Note that this will restore the video for 30 days. You’ll have to click on the video again (to count as a “view”) in order to avoid it going to the archive again in 30 days.
How do I reactivate my content?
Whenever someone attempts to view archived content, they’ll be presented with a message indicating that it’s been archived as well as with a link saying “restore from archive”. Clicking this link will initiate the restore, which can take up to 48 hours to complete. (details on reactivating)
In addition, in the Course Media Gallery or on the Panopto site, you can search for archived videos and re-activate them directly from the search results by including archived videos in your search by selecting the “Include Archived videos” icon. Archived content will appear with the thumbnail image greyed out and the Archive icon over it. When hovered over, you can select the “Restore from Archive” button that appears underneath its title. (details on reactivating from search)
By default, when an archived video is restored, its creator will receive an email notification. The email will include a link to the restored video and information on who restored the video. Additionally, by default, when an archived video is restored, its restoration requestor will receive an email notification, letting them know the video has been restored.
How do I make sure my content continues to stay active through the semester?
Media is only moved to archive when it hasn’t been played for more than 24 months. Playing it for even a second is sufficient to reset the timer and ensure that it won’t be archived for another two years. Videos that have been played in the past two years will not be made inactive.
Owners of content in Panopto don’t have to do anything to move their inactive media to archive; it happens automatically when left unviewed. However, content can be moved to archive manually also.
How do I make sure my content stays active through my entire time at Williams?
Currently, video creators are unable to permanently protect videos from archiving and deletion, but this request can be fulfilled by Panopto administrators, who at Williams are the Academic Technology Consultants). (An earlier version of this post mistakenly indicated that video creators can change the policy).
Please contact your Academic Technology Consultant and indicate which video(s) you would like to be exempt from the four-year deletion policy. Please provide the title of the video and/or the link to the specific video you would like to preserve.
Optional, recommended step– move your videos into a personal folder for preservation: We strongly recommend that you place all the videos you would like to retain indefinitely in a single folder that is not connected to a particular course. Please follow the steps below:
- Navigate to williams.hosted.panopto.com
- Click on “GLOW Media Gallery” in the upper left.
- Select “My Folder”
- Add a folder (or multiple folders) to hold the videos that you would like to preserve.
- Next, identify and move all videos that you would like to be preserved to this folder.
- Share the link to this folder with your Academic Technology Consultant. They can change the retention policy on this folder.