Following a successful pilot during the Spring 2022 semester, the University of Nebraska System selected YuJa to replace VidGrid as our academic video content management system. YuJa allows faculty to record, edit, upload and share video content easily. Thank you to the UNO faculty members who participated in the pilot – faculty feedback was critical to this project.
We encourage you to start using YuJa today!
YuJa is now available in Canvas; look for the YuJa Video button in the navigation bar of your Canvas courses. YuJa can also be accessed direclty through the UNO YuJa portal.
Update: April 28th, 2023
As of now the following have been completed or will be starting very soon:
- Video Migration 1: All videos in VidGrid as of October 30th 2022 were migrated to YuJa in December 2022.
- Link swapping 1: Links and embedded VidGrid videos have been changed in Canvas to their associated videos in YuJa, for all courses prior to the Spring 2023 semester.
- Video Migration 2: Any videos added to VidGrid between October 30th 2022 and March 20th, 2023 were copied to YuJa and should be there now.
- Link swapping 2: Begining around May 8th a second replacement of links and embedded videos will begin in Canvas for Spring, Summer, and Fall 2023 courses (if you've added any content yet to summer and fall). The link swaping should be completed by early June.
While YuJa has done a great job in copying videos and swapping out material from VidGrid to YuJa in Canvas, there were a couple of small issues to be aware of.
- Name of Canvas Pages: A bug in the process that updated Canvas pages with embedded videos from VidGrid to YuJa inadvertently renamed the pages in Canvas to be the name of the video. This only happened in Canvas courses older than the Spring 2023 semester and in development courses and organizations. If you copy past Canvas courses into future ones, we suggest you double check the names of your pages, as well as running the link validator to scan for any broken links.
- Thumbnail Images: When videos were copied from VidGrid to YuJa, no thumbnails were copied over. To select or add thumbnail images, check out the YuJa Resource Guide on Changing and Uploading Thumbnail Images.
- Captions: If your video in VidGrid had professional closed captions, those were migrated over to YuJa along with the videos. However, if your VidGrid video had machine generated captions those were NOT copied over. You will need to request machine captioning or professional captioning for these videos in YuJa.
Lastly: While videos on VidGrid will continue to play through the end of our contract on June 30th, we will be turning off the ability to add any new videos to VidGrid on May 22nd. This will allow us to make one final archival backup of all videos from VidGrid prior to the license ending.
As with everything related to academic technology, please reach out to the UNO Digital Learning team with any questions you have or assistance you need!
If you haven’t already taken the time to learn about and start using YuJa, we suggest taking the opportunity to do so now.
- Check out the training schedule and find a time to join us and learn how!
- For new recordings, start using YuJa so that you are set for the future. VidGrid will still be available until the end of June but the sooner you start using YuJa, the better shape you’ll be in when VidGrid is no longer available.
- As you are working in your classes in Canvas, when you come across videos still linked from VidGrid, take a few minutes and update the links to the versions in YuJa.
The Academic Technology teams on each campus are providing training on YuJa, producing helpful guides and videos, and can work with individuals to help you with the process as we complete the move from VidGrid to YuJa. We are here to help!
Workshops
Many individuals have already begun to use YuJa and have attended training sessions during August or September. To make sure all people have the opportunity to receive training on YuJa, Digital Learning will continue to offer a YuJa training session every week through the month of December. Training sessions are listed below.
YuJa Basics - YuJa Enterprise Video Platform is an all-in-one video experience empowering faculty and students to securely create, manage, discover, collaborate and live stream video content across any device, with a smooth integration into existing enterprise systems including Canvas. This session will introduce the new video platform and deliver an overview of the features in order for you to get started creating your own academic videos.
Adding Video Quizzes with YuJa - YuJa Video Quiz allows instructors to enhance a lecture video by embedding interactive questions. Instructors can add prompted questions to guide student learning and/or self-practice to pause, think and reflect while watching the video. In this session participants will learn how to create and distribute videos with embedded quiz questions and quizzes where students receive a grade based on the percentage of the video watched as well as how video quiz grades seamlessly feed from YuJa into the Canvas gradebook.
Editing Videos with YuJa - Sometimes, when you record a video, you want to make adjustments. Maybe you want to cut out a few seconds of silence or add a text overlay to a few seconds of the video. YuJa offers video editing capabilities and allows you to improve your media content. In this session participants will learn how to use the video editing tools in YuJa.
One-On-One Training
Struggling with YuJa or can't make our training sessions? Set-up a 30 minute one-on-one meeting with one of our Instructional Technologists or Instructional Designers! We can help with your specific questions or use cases and provide smart strategies for video in your instruction.
Book a one-on-one help session
Zoom Virtual Support
You can also drop into our virtual support room with your YuJa questions anytime between 9:00a.m. and 4:00p.m., Monday through Friday. Access our virtual drop-in room through Canvas by clicking on the help icon in the global navigation bar, or click the button below.
Contact Rick Murch-Shafer, Director of Academic Technology at rmurchshafer@unomaha.edu with any questions about the YuJa migration process.