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Distance Learning | School of Professional Studies | Northwestern University

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Panopto

Panopto is a web-based video capture and hosting application licensed by the university and integrated within Canvas. Students and instructors can leverage this application for creating, hosting, managing, and sharing video content.

When to use it?

For instructors developing courses, Panopto is an excellent tool for recording content such as webcam videos and screencasts, or for hosting content you have created elsewhere. Similar to services like Vimeo and YouTube, Panopto is a place to store content where from you can link, share, and embed. The added benefits of Panopto are that it is private to the university and integrated with the Canvas learning management system (LMS). This protects the identity of users and allows creators to maintain control over who has access.

You might upload or compile a catalog of videos related to a single topic and organize these into a playlist, pointing students directly to relevant content. If you have a script, Panopto supports not only captions, but also interactive transcripts, allowing students to search through the video for keywords so they can review certain parts of the lecture as needed.

And, working with your design team, you may develop assignments where students create and share video content with you and other students.

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