Author: Jenny Spohrer

Reminder: Panopto Scheduled Downtime starting Sat June 25 9pm-1am

On Saturday, June 25th 2022, the Panopto Cloud will be updated with the latest features and improvements. These updates will require downtime. We expect up to 4 hours of downtime, with a target start time of 9:00pm EDT.During the downtime, you will not be able to access or play videos stored in Panopto. If you are recording on a Mac or PC desktop client, you will see a “Server unable to connect” error message if you try to upload the recording to the cloud, but you will still be able to save it on your hard drive and upload it once the system is back up.For any questions, please contact Panopto Support online at support.panopto.com or email support@panopto.com.

For any questions about using Panopto, or to report any difficulties after the update is complete, please contact the Help Desk: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

Guest Access Turned Off in Spring 2022 Moodle Courses

Now that the registration period has ended, we have turned guest access off for spring 2022 academic courses. Teachers can check whether guest access is on in their courses and re-enable or disable it as needed.

This process has three known side effects that we cannot prevent, but which can be fixed relatively easily:

  1. Some course content may have become hidden if you are using the Collapsible Topics course format. To fix this
  2. Change the Course format to Topics (click the gear icon (Actions menu), choose Edit Settings, click Course format and choose Topics, then click Save and Display).
  3. Then reset it back to Collapsible topics (click the gear icon (Actions menu), choose Edit Settings, click Course format and choose Collapsible topics, then click Save and Display).
  • Course full names will be reset to names created by Bionic. Click the gear icon (Actions menu) and choose Edit Settings to change the course full name.
  • Moodle creates an additional Announcements forum in your course.
    • To delete the ones you aren’t using, click Turn editing on, then click the Edit menu for that activity and choose Delete.
    • If you want to delete ALL of the Announcement forums in a course, you will also need to edit your course settings: click the gear icon (Actions menu), choose Edit Settings, click Appearance to expand that section, and set Number of announcements to 0. As long as this setting is greater than zero, Moodle will simply regenerate the last Announcement forum every time you delete it.

If you have any questions about these changes or need help fixing them, please contact the Help Desk (610-526-7440 or help@brynmawr.edu).

What’s New in Panopto and Zoom

What’s New in Panopto

What’s New in Zoom

Note: Some features are require later versions of the Zoom app/desktop client. If you aren’t seeing a feature below, upgrade your Zoom app to the latest version. Some features may not be supported in iOS and Android apps.

For all participants

  • Hide Self View. Use this in-meeting feature to hide your own video from yourself after you turn it on to help prevent Zoom fatigue.
  • Stop Incoming Video. Use this in-meeting feature to block other people’s video if you’re having bandwidth issues or to reduce Zoom fatigue.
  • Set a custom gallery view. All participants can now reorganize video participants in the Gallery view and save the order for future instances of a recurring meeting. Hosts can create a customized view for participants.
  • Other tips for avoiding Zoom fatigue.

For hosts/co-hosts

  • Focus mode. Designed for online learning, hosts/co-hosts can turn focus mode on during a meeting to hide non-host/co-hosts participants videos and/or shared screens from other non-host/cohost participants. Hosts can make this the default by checking Enable focus mode when meeting starts under Advanced Options in the meeting settings when setting up the meeting.
  • Advanced Polling and Quizzing. Hosts can turn this on in meeting setting to add new question formats (e.g., short answer) and/or turn polls into quizzes by designating a correct answer for questions. (Note: Participants using older Zoom apps may need to exit the meeting, update their Zoom apps, and rejoin to answer advanced polls and quizzes.)
  • Broadcast message or screen to all breakout rooms. Hosts/cohosts in the main meeting room can now broadcast messages to and share their screen in all breakout rooms. See Managing Breakout Rooms for updated information.
  • Two-way chat with participants in waiting room. Hosts/co-hosts can now message participants in the waiting room individually and receive replies. See How to Use Waiting Room for updated information.

If you have any questions about or issues with these or other features in Panopto or Zoom, please contact the Help Desk (help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440).

Panopto Scheduled Outage starting 9pm Saturday Jan 8

Panopto has announced a scheduled downtime from 9:00 pm ET Saturday, January 8, until 1 am ET Sunday, January 9, 2022.

  • While Panopto is offline, you will NOT be able to record/upload to Panopto or  manage and view recordings on Panopto.
  • If you need to record during the outage, use the Panopto Mac or PC desktop app and choose Continue Offline instead of logging in to record to your computer’s hard drive, then upload the recording to Panopto once service is restored. (See How to Record with Authenticating for details.)
  • If you need to view during the outage and the recording owner allows downloads, download a copy of the recording BEFORE the service outage begins so you can play recordings locally, rather than streaming them.

During this outage, Panopto will be releasing a major update that includes new features. For a demo of these features, register for Panopto’s New Features webinar on Wed, January 26 at 11:00 am-12:00 pm EST (free if you use your brynmawr.edu address). LITS will also providing info on new features of interest to our community. Full January 2022 release notes are here.

Please contact the Bryn Mawr College Help Desk (help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440) if you have any questions or concerns.

Scheduled Moodle Maintenance: 12/13 7-9am

LITS will be performing Moodle maintenance and upgrades on Monday, Dec 13 between 7:00-9:00 am. Moodle will be unavailable briefly during this window while we complete this work, but the service interruption should last no longer than 15 minutes.

This upgrade provides performance improvements, but no substantial changes in the look or functionality of existing features. It does add a few new features, and we will provide more details about how to use them in the new year.

Contact the Help Desk with questions: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

Scheduled Maintenance: Domain of One’s Own, Sept. 26, 3pm-6pm ET

Reclaim Hosting will be performing maintenance work designed to improve server performance on the servers that host our Domain of One’s Own instance on Sunday, Sept. 26, between 3:00 pm and 6:00pm ET. The servers will need to be taken offline to complete this work, and any websites, files and databases stored on Domain of One’s Own subdomains — that is, anything with digital.brynmawr.edu in the URL — will be temporarily unavailable while the servers are offline. Reclaim Hosting will try to limit the duration of this outage as much as possible.

If you have questions or have problems with a site or resource hosted on Domain of One’s Own after this maintenance window closes, please contact the Help Desk (help@brynmawr.edu or x7440) and let us know the URL of the affected site or resource.

Can You Keep Calm and Caption On?

At LITS, we know just how important it is for each person in our community to get access in a way that works for them. We also know a thing or two about how to make that happen, so to share that knowledge, we’ve created a semester-long game inviting everyone at BMC to keep calm and caption on!  

Starting the week of September 13th– and throughout the fall semester– we’ll post a new training every week showing the many ways in which you can keep the captions on at BMC. Each training will teach you how to set up captioning on a different platform. Your mission – if you choose to accept it – is to complete each weekly training in preparation for a digital escape room at the end of the semester. In the digital escape room, your captioning skills will be put to the test as you use them to figure out clues.

To view all trainings: https://lits.blogs.brynmawr.edu/tag/captionon   

Please note, these trainings are optional, but highly recommend as the skills they teach will help you move through the escape room more quickly. As the day approaches we will publish more information about the escape room, including the date and registration information. This game is open to all members of the BMC community. Please reach out to Grace Cipressi at gcipressi@brynmawr.edu with any questions.

Scheduled Moodle Maintenance — Tuesday Aug. 24, 9-11am

We will be upgrading our Moodle instance to version 3.10 on Tuesday, August 24 from 9-11am.

This is a minor upgrade and we do not expect any service downtime, although users may experience slow or unusual behavior during the upgrade and notice some new features and enhancements. We will provide more information about those changes closer to the date.

Please note: this work is being done outside our routine maintenance window so as not to conflict with placement exams occurring at that time.

Contact the Help Desk with questions: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.